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mionemymind · 4 months

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Chapter 2: Confessions for You

My Rival Series

Series Summary: The time where Y/n Y/l/n and Wanda Maximoff were academic rivals that fell for each other.

Chapter Summary: Y/n already is losing herself to her studies as competition looms closer and closer.

A/n: Gif credits to @elizabetholsens

Warnings: Rivals to Lovers, Obvious Feelings, Stubborn Reader, Cursing, Alcohol, Puking, Memory Loss? (ish)

Word Count: 5.1k

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |

Last Month - Spring Semester

‘I fucking hate losing to her.’ Y/n’s fists were tightly clenched as she saw Wanda celebrate another perfect score. The glimmer in her eyes almost made Y/n’s vein burst from anger. The competition was in three weeks and the last day of school was in four weeks.

It's been almost a month since she spoke to Dean Holloway about her scholarship. Since then, Y/n’s mental health has extremely deteriorated. The lack of sleep and the inability to eat was catching up to the bright student.

She was making more mistakes in math club, simple ones that even the freshman could do with their eyes closed. Her confidence has gotten lower and lower the more she was unable to perfect her craft.

And as Y/n stared at the ninety nine written on her test, all emotion was devoid from her. She was tired. Something that Wanda had noticed. The brunette had kept up on her usual appearances around Y/n. She taunted Y/n slightly over scores, grinned at every question she got right at math club, and overall proved to everyone why she was number one.

But that wasn’t to say that the brunette didn’t notice all the changes happening to Y/n. If anything, Wanda was the first to notice all the changes. She noticed the appearance of deeper eyes bags, the short temper Y/n had over small mistakes, and even worse, the lack of focus Y/n had during lectures.

There were other changes too like the way Y/n no longer engaged at all to Wanda’s banter. Instead, she would walk away, fists clenched, as if Y/n was holding herself back. Or the times that Wanda no longer spotted Y/n with her friends at all. It was like she was distancing herself from everyone she knew.

While Wanda tried her best to look out for Y/n, all her kindness turned bitter when she thought of that meeting.

Sitting across from each other, the two were finishing their project, looking over the final draft before submitting it. Wanda was looking over Y/n’s part of the essay when she came across a large paragraph that contained a lot of circular reasoning and hardly any sources.

Wanda circled it and leaned forward to show Y/n. “Hey, you made a mist-,” Y/n snatched the paper, already rereading the paragraph at lightening speed. Her shoulders were tense as she squinted her eyes to read the paper better.

“You didn’t explain your side well enough. I see what you’re trying to say but you end up using circular reasoning to back up your point rather the the sources we’ve gathered.”

Feeling already embarrassed enough from math club, Y/n had enough. She got up, causing the chair to make a horrible screeching noise. Wanda grimaced at the sound as she noticed Y/n packing up.

“Where are you-”

“Fuck off, Maximoff. I don’t need your input.” Wanda was caught off guard at Y/n’s hostility, but the smart girl had a sharp tongue and there was no way in hell she was going to allow Y/n to talk to her like that.

“Clearly you do when you’re making basic mistakes like that.” Y/n scoffed as she stuffed her backup.

“Always quick to call out someone’s mistakes. Would love for the day someone laughs at yours.” Wanda got up, her chair making the same awful sound.

“Why are you being so rude? We are doing a peer review. What did you expect? That I let you mess up my grade.” Y/n rolled her eyes as she swung her backup over her shoulder. The zipper was barely over the arch, the swing almost causing her backup to open up. Y/n grabbed the remainder of her stuff and held it.

“You’re the last person I would ever call my peer. Do what you have to Maximoff but I’m fucking done here.” Y/n left without another word.

Wanda stood at her spot, offended at the fact that Y/n even snapped at her. What was worse, she genuinely felt hurt by Y/n’s tone. Y/n had never spoken to her like that, not in the three years they’ve known each other.

So as she grabbed her stuff, her paper being last, Wanda didn’t notice the lack of marks on her paragraphs. All she noticed was the painful feeling in her heart left by Y/n.

“Okay everyone, let's please settle down so we can talk about the format for this upcoming state competition.” Up at the front of the lecture hall stood Y/n and Wanda. Naturally they stood a couple of feet apart as Wanda took the lead of the meeting.

“This year we have the amazing honor of bringing in three teams to represent Evergreen University. Fortunately for us, Dean Holloway was able to get the approval to send in another team this year.” There were several claps coming from the students as Y/n somberly looked at the floor.

‘He just wants to increase the odds of me losing.’ Y/n thought. Noticing that Y/n was not paying attention, Wanda shook her head and continued with the announcement.

“As tradition has it, we will hold a bracket competition for those that would like to compete. Each team will have four slots to fill. Naturally as your co-captains for the club, we will only have 10 slots available for those that want to participate.”

Wanda walked over to Y/n, giving her a slight pat on the back as she walked past her. “Your co-captain will list off how the competition will go.”

Y/n cleared her throat, regaining her focus as she addressed the crowd. “In order to better assess senior and new member abilities, we will be holding a kahoot style competition as this will best mirror the real competition.”

Walking away from Wanda, “In order to avoid embarrassment of who did or did not get the answer correctly, we will be using the clickers that the University has provided our club. On the sign up sheet, I will write down your name beside the clicker number. The top ten members will receive a place for the competition. However, the members that place 11th through 13th will constitute as our substitutes in the case of anything happening to our members.”

Y/n sat over to the desk of clickers, ready to write. “For those that are not wanting to participate but would like to see who has made it to our team, you are more than welcomed to stay as the questions on the screen will provide great practice. You may start lining up now for your clickers.” Wanda ended her speech with a gratuitous smile.

A long line of students started to form as Y/n wrote each name down. Coincidentally enough, the first two clickers were reserved for Wanda and Y/n. Unbeknownst to Y/n, she wrote Wanda’s name at first and her name being second. Even her subconscious knew the truth.

So as Wanda got the questions ready, Y/n sat at the table, away from everyone, hoping that her extreme hours spent studying were going to be worth it. Y/n looked at Wanda who sat with some of her friends in the club. There was still that stupid smile on her face.

‘Eat dirt.’ Was all Y/n thought as the first question popped up on the screen.

“Wait - you’re unable to pick me up when spring semester ends? Why?” Y/n sighed, still feeling the bitterness from math club as she sat under a tree that observed the Hodgekins Math building.

“I’m sorry honey - your father and I are going to attend an important meeting for his company in Europe. Unfortunately, we were unable to reschedule it as your father’s clients were only able during that time to discuss the merge factors. I do hope you understand.”

Y/n’s eyes teared up, feeling lower than ever before as she spotted Wanda finally leaving the building, the brunette’s words still in her mind.

“How are you expected to lead when you can’t even get in the top ten?” Wanda whispered as she smiled at the students who made the team. “If you can’t even score top five, how can I trust you? Get your head back or I’m going to have to get someone else to fill your spot.”

“Can you at least send Percy to help me out?” Y/n wiped her tears before they got a chance to fall. The weight of everything was crushing her down and it felt like no one even noticed.

“Of course. He’ll be there to help you. How is school going by the way? Are you having fun? Your grades still okay?” Y/n leaned back on the tree, making sure no one was nearby.

“It's been…okay. My state competition is less than a month away and I’ve been trying my best to study a lot for it.” Y/n bit her cheek, the feeling of losing gripped her heart. “But other than that, my grades are still good.”

Y/n couldn’t see it, but her Mom was smiling on the other end of the phone. “Is that girl - what’s her name - oh yeah, Wanda, still there?” Y/n froze at the mention of the brunette, even worse, Wanda was oddly walking in her direction.

“Mom - I really don’t want to talk about her.” It’s like no matter what, Wanda somehow managed to pop up everywhere in her life.

“Well, it has been a while since you’ve talked about her. I was starting to think she was no longer around.” Y/n knew when her Mom was acting oblivious and this happened to be one of those moments.

“Mom-”

“You know if you can’t stand it just come back home. Your father is more than happy to help you get enrolled into-”

“Mom - I’m not going to Langford University. Dad can keep wishing but I will stay at Evergreen University.” The topic of Langford and her father was always a strain. While Y/n’s father was an alright man and honestly a great father, his vision for Y/n’s future never aligned for what his daughter wanted.

Ever since she got accepted to Evergreen University, their relationship grew complicated. He even stopped calling after Thanksgiving break of her first semester in college. While Y/n did have a better relationship with her mother, it was still complicated nonetheless.

“Look, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later Mom. Bye - love you.” Y/n hung up before her mother said anything back. The brunette that’s been in her mind stood right in front of her with a blank look on her face.

“What do you want?” Wanda rolled her eyes at Y/n’s hostility. She hadn’t even said a word and she’s already managed to piss Y/n off. Had it been earlier in the year, Wanda would have enjoyed just how quick she could get under Y/n’s nerves. But now, Wanda couldn’t stand Y/n either.

Taking a deep breath, Wanda calmed her anger and said, “Have you thought about what I said?”

Standing up, Y/n wiped any possible dirt from her pants and glared at Wanda. “Don’t even think about replacing me. I’ll be at the competition and I’ll make sure that my group wins it all.”

“You better be on your A-game at our next practice. If not, I’m pulling you.” Y/n’s jaw clenched at Wanda’s threat. Who was she to call the shots? They were co-captains after all.

“Don’t worry your pretty head about me, Maximoff. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

‘I need to focus.’ It was a weeknight. As usual, Y/n was using this time to study for math club. Wanda had sent out a new packet for the competitors to use as practice for the real competition.

For a majority of the questions, she had gotten ninety seven out of the hundred correct. But Y/n was on the brink of losing it all. She knew that any wrong answer would immediately lead to a Maximoff victory and that was the last thing she wanted.

‘I need to be perfect.’ Erasing her calculations, Y/n redid it but still wasn’t able to match to the correct answer. Tightening the grip on her pencil, Y/n tried to not let this get to the best of her. But the constant sound of Natasha practicing her guitar started to aggravate her.

In addition small music was already playing in the background, something Natasha was trying to play along with. So when Y/n redid her calculations once more and still got the wrong answer, she could feel her anger start to resurface. Still, she maintained her best composure and erased the wrong answer. \

Retrying for the third time, Y/n was close to reaching the correct answer when her pencil tip broke. ‘Just bad timing. That’s all. Get a new pencil and move on.’ She spoke internally. But the rational thoughts mixing with her anger were not a good combo.

Was she hallucinating or was Natasha’s music suddenly getting louder? Ignoring it, Y/n grabbed a new pencil when the sound of a new email alerted her attention to her laptop. Going to Outlook, Y/n looked at the new email, its subject already signaling alarms in her head.

Dean Holloway

New Scholarship Requirements

Feeling all sorts of anger and embarrassment, Y/n broke her pencil and slammed her computer shut. Standing up quickly, Y/n looked at Natasha, and without thinking, said, “Can you please cut that shit off?”

Y/n was already fuming with anger, not caring if she pissed her best friend at all. At first, Natasha looked shocked at Y/n’s outburst, quickly turning the music off. But the realization of Y/n’s tone offended Natasha.

“What’s up with you?” Natasha placed the guitar up against the wall. Y/n had never yelled at her like this before.

“I need to study and I can’t when you’re distracting me.” Y/n waved towards the direction of the speakers and the guitar as if it was so obvious.

“You could have asked nicely rather than being a dick about it.” Natasha did not like Y/n’s tone one bit. While they were best friends, Natasha did not take shit from anyone.

“You could have been considerate of other people in the room rather than assuming.” Natasha scoffed knowing that this was not the first time she played music in front of Y/n. Heck, she always played music ever since freshman year of high school. Natasha could vividly recall the amount of times she asked Y/n in the beginning days of them dorming. Y/n would always respond with a smile, saying she never minded. So why would things change now?

“Bullshit - tell me the real reason.” Natasha stood up and crossed her arms, not giving into Y/n’s lie.

“I’ve had enough. Maybe that’s the reason.” Natasha rolled her eyes. She walked closer to Y/n, quickly lifting her shirt up to expose just how skinny she had gotten.

“You’ve hardly been eating.” Feeling defensive, Y/n backed up, pushing her shirt back down. “You hardly sleep anymore. Not only that, I’ve barely been able to speak to you without you running away to study. Something is up. So tell me.”

Y/n glanced down to the floor. Tears pricked her eyes as she thought of a way to get out of this. Guilt consumed her as quickly as her anger did. And now, she doesn't know what to say.

So when the red head saw her friend silently cry, her shoulders dropped and immediately went in for a hug. “Whatever is eating you up, just please tell me. I’ll make sure to help you through it so you don’t have to go through it alone.”

‘If I’m not perfect…I’m going to lose you.’ But as Y/n clutched on to Natasha, no words escaped her mouth for the redhead had enough to worry about.

Day Before Competition - Spring Semester

“I can’t believe you’re actually going to a party.” Y/n looked over the simple outfit she had on, blue jeans, loose white shirt, and converse. This was the first time she was going to a party, vividly recalling the multiple lies she’s used to get out of one in the past.

“I don’t understand why this one is suddenly mandatory for club members to go to. We literally have a competition tomorrow.” Today was supposed to be spent for late night studying, but according to Wanda’s orders, this was a must for all twelve members.

“Who cares? I know you’re going to do well.” Natasha says behind Y/n. The red head admired Y/n’s outfit before looking eyes with her through the mirror. “You’ve been studying your ass off. I just know tomorrow is going to be your day.”

Y/n didn’t want to overthink Natasha's words. Ever since she outlashed that night, she refused to for her anger to get the best of her even though her circumstances weren’t so great. Offering Natasha a wide smile, Y/n said, “I’ll be only drinking one cup tonight but nothing else. I can’t be too drunk.”

“And I’m going to do the opposite, I will be getting drunk especially since finals are this upcoming week.”

‘I want to leave.’ Hours into the party, the crowd grew more alive. More people were in the center dancing while many small groups formed around the frat house. The backyard was filled with people vaping or smoking.

Y/n didn’t quite recognize all that attended the party. If she was being honest, people started to come even when they weren’t part of a club. There were a few outliers from chemistry and movie club, but other than that, the crowd was overwhelming.

Sipping on the last few bits of her drink, Y/n watched Natasha with a small buzzing feeling. The red head was downing her fifth shot. A smirk was wide spread on her face as she wiped the small bits of tequila that were on the corner of her mouth. The crowd around her cheered as the next person got their shot ready.

Natasha walked to where Y/n was standing and stood beside her. Feeling touchy, she decided to lay her head on Y/n’s shoulder and observed the crowd. She knew a lot of the outliers from the many parties she’s been to. Plus, with how outgoing of a personality Natasha had, a lot of people gravitated towards her.

But no matter how many people Natasha was friends with, Y/n was always her favorite. The two were opposites but that made the friendship even better. The red head always viewed Y/n as the black cat that never wanted to be petted. But the day she was finally allowed was one that Natasha always remembers.

“Having fun?” Y/n could smell the alcohol from Natasha’s breath but didn’t mind.

“A little bit. This drink is helping me not stress so much though.” Natasha smiled at Y/n’s confession. The two didn’t really have a long talk about her outburst many nights ago. And while Natasha always had her guesses, she remained at Y/n’s side, never wanting her best friend to feel alone.

As for Y/n, vowed to keep her anger in check. While she did still feel irritated at times, she focused on not letting her anger consume her as much. Even with the given circumstances, it wasn’t fair to Natasha or any of her friends to get the short end of the stick. It wasn’t their fault for the way things were.

“Ya know Nat, for this party to have mandatory attendance, I have not seen Wanda or any of the math club members anywhere.” Natasha looked around the crowd that was in the dance room and couldn’t spot the all too familiar brunette at all.

“That’s weird. Did y’all agree for a meet up spot?” Y/n shook her head no.

“I haven’t even gotten a text from Wanda. She’s usually on top of these things.” The two watched for a moment, letting the loud music fill the comfortable silence between them. Wanting to get another shot, Natasha almost left when she saw Wanda amongst the crowd.

“Why does Wanda affect you so much?” Y/n almost hadn’t heard Natasha’s question, but when Y/n followed the direction of her gaze, she knew.

“She doesn’t affect me.” Although it was a small buzz, the ability to lie knowing she had drunk a little was all the confidence Y/n needed.

“Well you talk about her,” Natasha pointed out. “Plus, anytime she’s around, you end up bickering for a while. Sometimes you would go on rants talking about what she said to you during class.”

The blush that appeared on Y/n’s cheek was hard to spot in the dark setting. The brown eyed girl clutched on her red solo cup, feeling embarrassed that she was easily called out with compelling evidence.

Looking back at Wanda, Y/n could feel her heart rate increase as she saw her talking to other people. There was this different aura surrounding her. Maybe it was the drink or maybe it was the fact that she seemed to really enjoy herself. Like academics wasn’t the only thing she excelled in.

“Is she the reason you’re acting so differently lately?” Natasha lifted her head as she felt Y/n stiffen up. Feeling like she overstepped, the red head was about to spout an apology.

“Yeah,” Y/n continued to look at Wanda. Even though it was rude to blame the situation on her, it was easier to admit it than speak the truth. “It’s just..I hate Wanda Maximoff. I hate her face and the way she hides her freckles. I hate her smile and how perfect she laughs. I hate how smart she is and how she knows everything. I hate her.” Y/n complained.

But how could she hate the girl that always took number one in everything? How could she hate the girl that captivated her mind 24/7? How could she hate the girl she would willingly be number two for?

And as Natasha looked back at Wanda then Y/n, a realization suddenly hit her. ‘You like her.’ But Natasha didn’t dare to confess this outloud but it was so obvious. ‘What else would eat her up this way?’ Natasha thought.

On the other side of the party, Wanda could feel eyes on her. Looking around the room, she finally connected to the brown eyes she knew well. Unknowingly, the sight of Natasha being so close aggravated the brunette for some reason.

But all Wanda could focus on was how soft Y/n’s stare was. There was no jealousy or bitterness about them. And that captivated Wanda even more because this was the first time that Y/n had ever looked at Wanda that way.

Suddenly, all the air shifted in the room, and Wanda couldn’t help but think, “Why does she hate me?”

Natasha left after her tenth shot as her girlfriend dragged her away. Feeling no reason to stay any longer, Y/n made her way out the frat house when she bumped into Wanda.

The red head was unable to stand up straight, almost falling if it weren’t for Y/n’s arms. “Hey - hey - are you okay?”

Here was the gaze again, the same one Wanda felt half an hour ago. It was almost too much to handle the first time, leading Wanda to drink even more. It was stupid, nonetheless, Wanda was drunk and the very reason why was the same one holding her.

Feeling too much, Wanda leaned away as she puked into the bush. Almost wanting to puke from the sight, Y/n held Wanda’s hair back as she patted her back. “There - there.”

Y/n looked around and was thankful that no one was here to witness this scene. As much as she hated Wanda, Y/n didn’t want this image to be in people’s heads.

Standing back up, Wanda teared up, hating the feeling of puking.

“Hey - it’s gonna be okay.” Not knowing what compelled her to do this, Y/n used the bottom of her shirt to wipe Wanda’s mouth. She didn’t care if puke got on her. The idea of Wanda crying infront of her was worse than puke.

“Let me take you back home. You can’t walk in these conditions.” Was Y/n thankful that Wanda had bumped into her? No…well at least that’s what she would say out loud. But as Y/n walked Wanda back to her dorm, the awful thought of Wanda unsafely walking by herself at night made her sick.

Arriving to dorm 321, Y/n swiped the key card, opening the door to a cold room. Carefully leading Wanda to her bed, Y/n lifted the white duvet, allowing Wanda to crawl in.

When Wanda looked comfortable, Y/n looked around the room, noticing the minifridge at the corner. Opening it up, Y/n grabbed a water bottle and placed it at Wanda’s nightstand.

Although Y/n could leave, the sight of Wanda sleeping made her freeze. Many thoughts slipped through her mind, some that she would blame the alcohol on. But there was this worrying feeling in her heart as the thought of Wanda puking in her sleep crossed her mind.

No one would be able to help her in time considering she didn’t have a roommate. Groaning at her predicament, Y/n looked around the room. There was no spare pillow or blanket. It would be a rough night and the competition was soon. Looking at the clock on her wall, the bus would be ready to leave at 8:00 am giving Y/n around six and half hours to sleep.

Was it worth it to stay at all? Would Wanda be fine? But as Y/n helped Wanda turn on her side to sleep, the brown eyed girl knew her answer.

“Wanda, I’m going to be on the floor. If you need anything, just let me know.” There was no response from Wanda. Figuring she could leave before Wanda woke up in the morning, Y/n laid down on the ground, feeling cold from the intense air conditioning.

‘I can’t sleep if I’m freezing to death.’ The thought of using the rug below her as a blanket crossed her mind. Before she could say fuck it, Wanda’s voice caught her attention.

“Why do you hate me?” Glancing towards the bed, Y/n couldn’t see Wanda’s face from her view at the floor. Laying back down, Y/n looked at the ceiling, surprised that Wanda was even up.

“What makes you think that?” It was rude to dampen a drunk girl, that much was common sense for Y/n. So rather than outwardly admit anything, she rediverted it back to Wanda.

“I can’t recall a moment where you were kind to me.” Y/n froze as she thought about that moment back in the library, wondering if Wanda had her flannel in her dresser. “And I don’t think you’ve said a nice thing about me…so you must hate me.”

Oh how wrong Wanda was. Because the truth of it all, Y/n never hated Wanda. She could never hate the girl that pushed her to do her best everyday. She could never hate the girl that would go above and beyond for people that need help. She could never hate the girl she lived and breathed for.

“I have said nice things about you,” Y/n whispered. The two never spoke like this before and it terrified Y/n to even admit such things. “You just have to look inbetween the lines. You’re smart - so I guess I hoped you saw through them.”

Wanda was too drunk to really recall anything. She wanted so badly to ask but was afraid of the truth. “Are you ready for the competition?”

Looking back up, Wanda had scooted to the edge of the bed, her eyes connecting with Y/n. “I think so. Do you think you’ll win?”

Pulling the duvet away from her mouth, Wanda looked away as she said, “If I don’t, I’ll just disappoint my father.”

“You wouldn’t disappoint me.” Wanda looked back at Y/n. Had she not been drunk, the intensity of her words and stare would have made her combust.

But as the long night finally reached Wanda, she suddenly fell asleep before she could respond back. “Nothing you could ever do would disappoint me, Wanda.”

Competition Day - Spring Semester

Waking up to the sound of her alarm, Wanda panicked at the time. Immediately rushing to brush her teeth and change her clothes, she rushed out of her dorm, almost forgetting the important papers for the competition.

As she ran on to the bus, sparing ten minutes, she looked around to see that everyone besides two people were left. The migraine in her head was hard to ignore, regardless, Wanda was thankful that she made it on time.

Soon, the remainder of the team hopped on board, choosing a free row for themselves. Since it was a four hour ride, Wanda didn’t bother lecturing the team this early about the competition. She could do that later.

Finding a free row near the front, she sat down at the seat closest to the window. Cursing herself for even drinking so much, Wanda glanced over and noticed that Y/n was across from her. She had jeans and white shirt on with a weird stain at the bottom.

Wanda almost wanted to yell at her for not being in uniform when she noticed that she was asleep. Feeling another headache, Wanda focused on trying to find medicine in her backpack, the events of last night gone from her memory.

Taking an ibuprofen, Wanda pulled out her notes and studied some problems. And although she didn’t remember, the girl across from her did as she finally got some sleep, having been up all night making sure that Wanda was safe and sound.

Chapter 3

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wip · 5 months

Note

A very very minor thing I have been curious about for a while, and I'm finally asking: why do you calculate queue posting times the way you do? For example, if I set my queue to post 3x a day, naively I would expect it to post every 8 hours. But in reality it posts every 6 hours with a 12 hour gap between days. Why complicate the math like that?

Answer: Hello @circumference-pie!

Buckle up y’all, it’s story time again!

First: nobody who works at Tumblr right now was a part of the work of planning the default queue implementation, which was more than ten years ago. So the full story behind “Why does it work that way?” has unfortunately been lost to the sands of time. All we can do is tell you how it works today and surmise some reasons why. The queue is actually a very clever system and part of how it works explains some of why it works the way it does. Also, there have been attempts to do what you ask—we still have “Queue 2.0” available in your Tumblr Labs settings, which tries to get closer to how you expect things to work.

Anyway! How the queue works today is not actually a queue in the traditional sense. There is no single list of posts that are in “your queue”. Instead, when you “Add to queue” after creating a post, we’re actually scheduling it to post at a future time, as if you had used the “Schedule post” option instead. We’re just calculating that time on your behalf when you use “Add to queue”, based on your settings, and how many other scheduled posts you have already. We use a secondary “index” model, called “ScheduledPost”, to keep track of posts you have scheduled on your blog. We do mark the ones that are a part of “your queue”, but the data model doesn’t keep one list of your “queue” per se.

You can see this in action on your blog, hiding in plain sight. If you add a bunch of posts to your queue, and then schedule a post for a specific future date, you’ll see both in your blog’s “queue” list, side by side. Because technically to us, they’re the same thing: queued posts are really just another kind of scheduled post, relying on the same always-running service to publish scheduled posts across all of Tumblr. Here’s a fun fact: we typically have about ~14.5 million future posts to publish from this list at any given time and are publishing hundreds of these scheduled posts every second.

So when you’re adding a new post to your queue, what we’re doing behind the scenes is starting at the beginning of your “day”, and creating time slots based on your queue settings. If a time slot is already filled, we move on to the next one. That’s why the default queue scheduler works how you describe—we’re trying to fill those “slots” based on the start of the day, rather than trying to divide the calendar day evenly. This just makes it much simpler for us to understand, scale, and predict when our “peaks” will be. At peak times, the publish-scheduled-posts service is publishing tens of thousands of posts in a manner of seconds. We did rewrite that post-publishing part of this architecture a few years ago to improve its efficiency and solve a lot of “lost post” bugs, but we didn’t change how “Add to queue” works.

However, the Queue 2.0 project available in Labs was an attempt to change the queue system to work as you expect—instead of starting at [beginning of day] and creating enough slots to fit [number of slots] every [number of hours], it tries to divide the calendar day into [number of slots] and fit the result back to the original algorithm’s mapping of the day. We never productionized this alternative approach, because it has a few bugs that some blogs hit in extreme cases, and we’ve never had time to fully fix them. It also can cause a bit of weirdness when time zones diverge, like with daylight savings time. Also, a lot of people prefer the default algorithm, and we haven’t thought of a nice way to transition everyone from one to the other. So for now, both options exist, and you can choose which algorithm for queue-slot-generating you want to use. We hope that makes sense!

While complicated, it is a great example of a system built by engineers to make sense and be scalable and predictable. But sometimes these kinds of systems, while clever, aren’t very intuitive to understand without digging into how they work.

Thanks for your question, and keep ’em coming.

#feature #posting #queue #backend

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jsmelodies · 2 months

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Here's part one of my contribution for day 3 of @cassianappreciationweek! I hope you enjoy reading it.

More chapters focusing on Nessian's growing family will be coming out over the course of Cassian week as well. Stay tuned!

Cassian was tired.

He’d just spend almost two weeks in the Northernmost parts of Illyria, helping to distribute supplies and look after the training of the younger warriors. It hadn’t been a bad visit necessarily, but he hated sleeping in a bed that wasn’t his, and waking up at odd hours of the morning to oversee training. It was draining. Especially since the mating bond had been quieter than he was expecting.

His feet touched down on the balcony of the House of Wind and he made quick work of crossing its halls to get to his room.

At over five hundred, he was getting too old for this. The aching cold had settled into his bones, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Nesta, who was likely already asleep.

She wasn’t asleep. Instead, she was propped up against the headboard, pillows supporting her back, reading what he imagined to be one of her novels. Except she wasn't reading, he realized upon closer inspection. Her eyes were on the page, but it looked like she was reading the same line over and over.

Nesta jolted upright when she noticed his attention on her. “You’re back. I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow.”

He offered a tired smile. “I decided to fly through the night. I couldn’t wait to come back home to you.”

Nesta didn’t say anything. Instead, she merely shrunk in on herself, silence lingering for way longer than it should.

Confusion furrowing his brows, Cassian took a step closer. “Is everything alright, sweetheart? You seem-”

The lingering scent of iron registered in his brain before he could finish his sentence.

“You’re bleeding?” he asked, wings flaring.

“I was.”

He knew he was overreacting. Being a typical territorial fae male. But he couldn’t help scanning her entirely, looking for any sign of hurt and evidence of who caused it. If someone had hurt her–

“I got my cycle when you were away.”

Everything in his body relaxed. That is, until he noticed the pained expression she still wore.

Nesta looked ready to collapse, like one poorly placed word might break her.

Cassian was confused. Yes, he could admit when he was an ignorant male. If her cycle was already over, which by the scent of her it was, he couldn’t for the life of him understand why she was still upset.

“You should have sent for me, Nes. I would’ve come back to be with you.” Nothing ever would have been able to keep him away, if he’d known. He had wondered why their bond felt a little more closed off than normal. Now it made sense, he supposed.

Her shoulders moved up in a shrug. “I didn’t want to bother you. You had more important things to worry about.”

Bullshit. That was complete and utter bullshit. The last time Nesta had gotten her cycle, he’d been in bed with her for days. She’d gripped his shoulders tight and made him keep his warm hand on her stomach the whole time, the contact seeming to be the only thing that brought her any semblance of relief.

“No, I really didn’t,” he said. “You’re feeling ok now, though?” he asked. Apprehension laced his tone. Something was off, but he didn’t quite know what it was.

“It ended yesterday.” She wasn’t looking at him again. “It’s been a while since my last one.”

His mind quickly did the math. “It was almost eight months ago.”

“Yeah.”

Why would that matter? Yes, they’d been trying for nearly a year, but surely she knew how long it might take?

Unless. Unless she didn’t.

“You thought you might have been…”

Once again, Nesta remained silent. Then, a few seconds later, her head dipped in a single nod.

“Oh, sweetheart.” He moved the final few steps to the bed and sat down next to his mate, reaching out his hands to pull her against him.

Her eyes widened, and she moved back an inch. “What are you doing?”

Cassian stopped instantly. “I was going to hold you.” His arms dropped a little. “But I should have asked first. I just thought…”

His words trailed off. Nesta was watching him with an expression he’d never quite seen before, a mixture of confusion and apprehension.

“I didn’t think you would want to,” she said.

His hands fell, running over the soft blankets of their bed. “And why would you think that?” he asked.

“Because I failed.”

His heart sank in his chest. “What are you talking about?”

“I got my cycle. I…failed.”

“You did not fail,” he almost snarled, holding himself back for her sake. “Do you hear me? You didn’t.”

“But I did. I will. Madja said it might never happen. That because my cycles are as inconsistent as they are, I may never be able to bear a child.”

He shook his head. “Madja said that might happen. That we might have problems with infertility. It wasn’t a guarantee,” he reminded her. “And plus, fae children take longer to conceive than human ones. Feyre and Rhys were the exception, not the rule.”

“And if it never happens?” she asked. When she looked at him again, her eyes were rimmed with tears. Fuck. “It’s a real possibility. I don’t want you to…regret choosing me.”

“I would never,” he swore.

“You say that now. You’d already be gone, if it was a human marriage,” she said. “Even still, you have an acceptable reason to leave me. No one would question it. All I ask is that if you do, please don’t drag it out. I don’t think I could take that.”

If that didn’t break his heart, Cassian didn’t know what would.

“Nesta. I’m going to say this as many times as you need to hear it. I do not love you for your ability to give me children.”

He squeezed her hand in his, and made sure he was looking into her eyes when he continued. “I love you because you’re my brave Valkyrie. Because you are fierce, and strong, and so incredibly kind, even when you try to hide it. And I am proud to call you mine.”

Nesta relaxed a little, and he kept talking. “I want nothing more than to have children with you. You have no idea,” he said. “But for now, maybe the two of us should take a step back.”

He saw the moment his stupidly-phrased words hit their mark, instantly knowing how she had interpreted them. “If that’s what you want,” she whispered. Something like betrayal flickered in her eyes for just a moment, before those bricks rose too quickly, blocking him out. Then she shifted in an attempt to get off the bed. Away from him.

“Fuck. No, Nes, that wasn’t what I meant,” he said, not letting her go too far, stopping her with a hand around her wrist. “I didn’t mean take a step back from you. I just meant, maybe for now, we should stop trying.”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

He took a deep breath. “I hate seeing you like this,” he said. “I hate that you feel like you’ve failed me. That couldn’t be any further from the truth.”

“But I–” Nesta paused, and shook her head. “I don’t get it. I might never be able to have your children, Cassian. I know how much you want them.”

“I do, Nes,” he said. “But I know how much you want them, too. And I made you a vow. I promised you that we would always face these things together. Always. I don’t ever plan to break that promise.”

Her eyes closed in a long blink as she exhaled. Cassian wiped a tear away with his thumb, stopping it before it ran down her face.

“You promise?” she asked quietly.

“I promise,” he repeated.

This time, when he went to hold her in his arms, Nesta didn’t stop him. He hugged her tight, not daring to let go. He didn’t ever want to let go.

“How do you feel about talking to Evelyn again?” he asked, when he felt that she had calmed down.

Evelyn was a couples’ therapist with a practice down in Velaris. They initially enlisted her services after the ordeal with Bryce–he’d seen the distrust and sadness on her face and promptly decided he never wanted to be the cause of it again. Being with each other was something they both wanted to choose, every day.

It had been rough, and messy, and at times, painful. But they got through it. They learned a lot about each other.

He learned that his mate forgave easily, but words lingered longer in her mind than most. Pathetic. Useless. Unworthy. Those were the ones that popped up the most often. So he made a point to replace them whenever he could. Every night before they went to sleep, Cassian placed a kiss on her brow and told her that he loved her. That he valued her. And every night, she looked closer and closer to believing him.

She learned that his jokes and his smiles hid a lot. More than he would like to admit. And when he’d started revealing those insecurities, it was enough to make Nesta tear up in Evelyn’s office.

But this…he had a feeling that they would need to dig deeper for this. That this wasn’t the type of problem that could be fixed with one conversation.

“You think we need to?”

“I think that I want to know where those thoughts are coming from,” he countered. “I think I already know what it is, but I’m not an expert in these things. I just want to make sure we’re doing this for the right reasons.”

The room once again fell into silence while Nesta considered his words. “Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll book an appointment.”

“Good.”

He continued to hold her, his hand stroking gently down her back. The worst of it was over, he knew. For tonight, anyway. But a hollowness still echoed in the room.

“I’m sorry it wasn’t better news,” he said quietly.

She sighed. “I really thought this might have been it. Eight months is a long time, especially to someone like me.”

Someone who used to be human. Someone who used to have a one month cycle.

He understood perfectly. There were some aspects of fae life that he knew she still struggled to adapt to. Scents was one of them. She had trouble picking up on the subtleties of emotion that a person carried, and they usually tended to overwhelm her, especially if she was in a crowded room.

”I know it is.”

He broke them apart just enough so he could see her face. “How about this, sweetheart,” he said, once he had her settled against him again. “Let’s enjoy life with just the two of us for a little while longer, while we still can. I’ll take you dancing somewhere new every week–I know you like that. Let me spoil just you for now.”

“You’re saying I have to put up with your company?” Nesta asked the question with a newfound sparkle in her eyes, one that hadn’t been there when he got home.

He rolled his eyes, flicking her nose with her fingers. “Smartass.”

“You love it,” she said, resting her head on his chest.

“That I do,” he agreed. “Now, let me go change out of my leathers and I’ll join you in bed, alright?”

They reluctantly parted. Cassian made quick work of stripping himself of the leathers and changing into a sleep shirt, then he slid back into bed.

“I guess I wouldn’t mind being spoiled by you for a little bit longer,” she said when he returned, settling into his arms. “But I think I also want to negotiate two bakery visits a week.”

“Two, hmm?”

“You know I like my cake.”

“I do know that,” he conceded. “Fine. Dancing once a week, and a bakery trip three times a week. Final offer.”

Nesta snorted, and a grin broke out on her face. “We have a deal.”

He offered her a small smile of his own, and hers softened to a look of pure contentment.

Cassian leaned in. “Can I kiss my beautiful wife?”

She loved it when he called her that. His wife. A person that he had chosen for himself, not some Cauldron or other authority.

Her eyebrow raised. “Just kiss?”

“Mhmm,” he hummed, pressing a light kiss in the space between her jaw and her earlobe, and said, “I want her to know just how much I love her.”

His wife was beautiful when she was flustered. When he pulled away, he found that she was exactly that: eyes blown wide and her lips slightly parted.

Her hands running through his hair was a feeling he would never tire of, and he groaned as she pulled him into a slow kiss. Bodies flush against each other, Cassian traced his fingers down the curve of her body, landing on her hip.

Before he could be tempted to do anything else, Cassian pulled away, noticing the red that had appeared on Nesta’s cheeks.

“Sleep,” he said. “I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”

He draped a wing over her body and pulled her against him so she was protected. Her head rested along his arm, using it as a pillow, and exhaustion seemed to finally win out in her head as her eyes fluttered shut.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she said, the sound muffling against his chest. “I missed you.”

Cassian held her tighter. “I missed you too, love.”

#cassianweek2024 #nessian #nesta archeron #cassian

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darkandstormydolls · 8 months

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I finished another new costume!

This one is of Edwin from the webcomic Crowmance (I think I may unintentionally be on a mission to sew costumes for progressively more and more obscure pieces of media)

The skirt was a bit of a challenge to figure out. I ended up having to do a great deal of math (sixths! I had to divide things by sixths!) and sewing together blue panels that were half the width of the black panels and then carefully box pleating them in. I also had to go through every episode of Crowmance so far to decide where the blue flashes were (center front, side front, side back, center back). The capelet/sleeve pieces were originally going be be sewn in like sleeves, but I realized that they didn’t actually work out like that in the pictures, so I ended up draping them on the shoulders like cape pieces to figure out how I wanted them to sit and then just whipstitching them down. The bodice itself went together very easily; I had a pattern for a princess-seamed jacket and just adjusted it to have a solid back with a center seam and a singular center front piece. I went through and screenshotted just about every fully body or clear picture of Edwin to figure out the seams for this. I was debating about putting hooks and eyes down the back, since there’s clearly some sort of line there, but since the dress is loose enough to pull over my head I decided to just leave it with a center back seam. I also debated back princess seams, since they show up in some pictures but not others, but finally decided that they aren’t super clearly there.

Some of my reference pictures:

The belt is made of two layers of heavily interfaced cotton (I know it’s a lighter color than the lining in pictures, but I didn’t want to bother getting another fabric and I think it looks good in the same light blue) with an interlining of also very heavily interfaced upholstery fabric. The pattern varies from picture to picture, so I just picked the most detailed one I could find (first of the two above pictures) and traced it on, then topstitched it, and went around the edges with a zigzag stitch for the edging. The center circle is a separate piece with hooks on both sides and the points of the belt have eyes, so they clasp together.

I already had the white shirt from my normal wardrobe, and I added the hair ribbon from my ribbon stash because a. I felt like it added a bit of extra pizzazz and b. there was no way my hair was staying in that half-ponytail with just pins and I did not want to risk a hair tie messing up the curls (my hair is actually straight, so I did not have high hopes for the foam rods I used, but I was pleasantly surprised with the volume I got. No bangs, but it’s pretty close).

I had made a bunch of hooded capes for some friends a while back, but never got around to making one of my own, so I figured this costume would be a great place to do so and made a little winter addition. I’m very happy with how the feather trim turned out. I wanted it to mirror the sleeves. I wish that the lining was a bit darker, but this was the felt that Joann’s had, and I had to work with what was available. I also added a sparky brooch I got at a flea market and just had in my costume bin for a little extra sparkle (it is a crow outfit, after all) and to hold it in place (maybe I should use a sparkly hair clip instead of the ribbon next time I wear this?)

I’m partially considering making Edwin’s wedding dress(? Fantasy dress?) in addition to this, although it might be a while before I get around to it with all my other costume and sewing projects. And, of course, it depends on if I could find an appropriate trim.

#cosplay #costuming #crows #crowmance

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sandwicz · 1 year

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Twisted Wonderland as quotes me and my friends said + teachers too pt. 2

Warnings: profanities, mention of cockroaches, some might be ooc, Rook

✧-------------------------------------------✧

*in the science club*

Rook: "i made a reverse filter :D"

Rook: "i turn clean water into dirty water"

Trey: "..."

Vargas: "Trappola... This is why you won't have a girlfriend in the future"

Epel: *shows a poster he made thats just memeable and very messy, kinda like a sh*tpost. Its for his presentation that's 30% his grade*

Epel: "Apple to coconut how bad is it"

Epel: "Apple = good, coconut = bad"

Epel: "all the fruits are included in between"

Ace: "its cherry then"

Epel: "idk if that's good or bad. i like cherry so its good"

Yuu: "Pear. Actually no its mango"

Epel: "I like mango so its good"

Yuu: *made a huge robot cockroach the size of a basketball(that walks slow) that's made out of cardboard for a project*

Yuu: *shows a pic and video of the project to some students*

Yuu: "cock"

Yuu: "this took forever"

Yuu: "i hate it"

Yuu: "it hath grown wings so it shall fly to the sun"

Yuu: "and i will sit and stare and salute as my papermade icarus flies ever onward”

Yuu: "... i think i lost it"

Floyd: *pokes jamil to show him the cockroach monstrosity* beetle?

Yuu: "i gave him wings don't you dare call him a beetle"

Jamil: *distraught and trying so hard to stop himself from burning the cockroach down* ...

*lets pretend NRC teaches students other languages other than english*

Leona: "what the f*ck the teacher slapped my hand"

Ruggie: "LMAO"

Jack: "what. ...why?"

Ruggie: *while laughing hard* "HE KNOWS YOU'RE SMART ITS JUST THAT YOU DIDNT WANNA PUT EFFORT"

Leona: "... this is why"

Ruggie: *still laughing while wheezing* "in the maths part of the (insert language here) exam Leona doesnt wanna calculate so instead, he wrote 0s to some of them and called it a day”

Jack: "..."

(yes our teacher did put math questions in our language exam)

Ace: “people are doing math the wrong way you guys be talking about x and y but never u and i”

Cater: “if i could rearrange the alphabet i’d put u and i together”

Cater: “you know why i like RNA better than DNA, because there’s U”

Riddle: “all these pickup lines and u all still single”

Deuce: "how do i fix my bad haircut"

Ace: "grow hair"

Deuce: "great idea"

Deuce: "never thought of that"

Deuce: "any other ideas"

Epel: "bald"

Ace: "bald"

Epel: "it's about drive it's about power"

Epel: "we stay hungry we devour"

Student A: "Sir Trein sucks, he doesn't deserve any teacher's day letter"

Deuce: *is pissed off* "HAA??!! U SHUT YOUR ASS"

Deuce: "What's your beanfest team HAH?"

Deuce: "I'll wipe it out."

Student A: " Your team."

Deuce: "oh."

Student A: "💀"

Vargas: "do you have a partner?"

Riddle: *confused at the sudden question* "...no?"

Vargas: *pats his shoulder* "no? Find someone in the future"

Yuu: "i read fire balls as furry balls"

Ace: "HAHAHAHA JACK'S FURRY BALLS LMAO"

Jack: "..."

Jack: "i hate you."

Riddle: *flabbergasted* "Cater. Yuu played tetris during class? Around the teacher?"

Cater: "Yeap"

Yuu: "ehe"

Riddle: *dissapointed noises*

Trey: "i'm surprised you didn't get caught"

Yuu: "ehe"

Floyd: *gets grouped with Epel, Lilia and Riddle for a group project*

Floyd: *decided to make a gc and determine the name of it*

Floyd: *names it "adorable midgets + floyd gc :D"

*few moments after they finally realized the gc name*

Epel: "FLOYD YOU MOTHERF*CKER IVE JUST REALIZED THE GC NAME"

Riddle: "YEAARGHHH FLOYD IT'S OFF WITH YOUR HEAD"

Lilia: *enjoying the chaos*

*in the middle of class*

*sound of a notif from an online shopping app*

Trein: "Who's notification is that? It must be from Cater, isn't it? Always shopping and checking social media"

*a few seconds later*

*sound of a notif from another online shopping app"

Trein: "Tsk tsk tsk... who is that? Who likes shopping so much? You already have an app for it and you have another one?"

Idia: "..." *hiding behind his tablet*

Bonus for all of yall, in case yall need it:

Yuu: *jokingly* "so how's the exam results? Were you dissapointed in us?"

Staff/character of your choice: “You can never disappoint me, i’m always proud of you”

Everybody: *tears up*

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randomsquirrel · 9 months

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Asks for a Fic Writer! 🔆

Well! I've been tagged by the very nifty @eemamminy-art, so how can I refuse? Thanks, mate! <3

1. how many works do you have on AO3? Only 41. It feels like more, but that's because I've got a couple of works that are obscenely long. Like, two series that are (so far) over half a million words, each

2. what's your total AO3 word count? ...1,524,864. That...is intimidating o_O

3. what fandoms do you write for? At the moment, just Stardew Valley and Final Fantasy XIV. I'd like to write for a couple more fandoms (like Baldur's Gate 3, as I am having a blast), but I just don't have the time as it is to work on the current series I have going D:

4. what are your top five fics by kudos? I don't have a lot of kudos on my fics because most of my works are long series with lots of chapters, so while they get quite a few hits and many return readers, only one kudos per visitor @_@ Friends With Benefics (FFXIV, NSFW), a spicy Thancred/Urianger one-shot that I really wanna revisit and turn into a mini-series :3c Sunshine on a Cloudy Day (SDV, SFW), a soft Sam/Sebastian work, one of my first ones, dealing with depression, and how it's hard to get people around you to understand that. Fortunately, Sam does :) Tales of Loss and Fire and...Love (FFXIV, SFW), a fluffy piece, just Thancred and Estinien being bros, having some drinks and bonding, before the Scions leave for Sharlayan. They have a lot in common, like shared trauma that they can finally talk about :( Formality and Debauchery (FFXIV, NSFW), the second of my Estimeric Week works, the prompt was "gala," so I decided that Aymeric had to figure out a way to get Estinien to join him at a high-society event, and did so creatively ;) Rose & Sunflower: The NSFW Chapters (SDV, NSFW), as my first Stardew fic series (Rose & Sunflower 1: The Music Within) was initially being posted to the SDV forums, before being cross-posted to AO3 several months later, I decided that any spicy scenes would have to have their own work so that I could keep posting on the forums. Thus, the NSFW Chapters are all of the naughty parts that couldn't make it into the "main" story. ...And gave me the chance to try a few "what if" ideas, too, that aren't "canon" to the rest of the story but are a lot of fun >:3c 5. do you respond to comments? Absolutely! Comments make my entire hecking day, and I love being able to interact with my readers, I'm just all, THANK YOU FOR EATING MY FOOD, I HOPE IT WAS DELICIOUS <3

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? An End to Hope (FFXIV, SFW), just for the challenge, for the second Estimeric Week event, I decided to see if I could actually do a "bad ending" fic. So this is what might have happened if Aymeric had been possessed by Nidhogg's eyes instead of Estinien >:D 7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I want to say the first book in my Rose & Sunflower series, since I was so chuffed to have completed a project I wasn't sure I could follow through on. But I had been going through a bad patch for a while when writing book 3 (A Different Perspective), and almost didn't finish it, as I lost the drive and physical ability to write for over half a year. So it was both a happy ending for both the characters and myself to see the entire trilogy completed ;_;

8. do you get hate on fics? Thankfully, no. So far I have been so fortunate to only have had positive and constructive feedback, and I treasure every person who has left those remarks :D

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind? Of my 41 works, *checks and does math*, 16 or 17 are smut/nsfw in some fashion, and is a lower number than I'd have expected. But again, I am prone to lengthy works, so while the number of dirty fics is relatively low, the lewd content per word is very high. All of it is m/m (so far), mostly 'cause the characters I'm working with just work that way. It's also diverse; some of it is normal pr0n, often there's poly/multiple partners, a bit of BDSM, and a few light kinks here and there. Heck, I forgot all I've done, 'cause now and then I go and backread things to check something and go "wait, I don't remember writing that! ...Hot" XD

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written? I enjoy writing crossovers, but don't do them that often. The best/craziest one is Ishguardians- The Factions of Coerthas, which, yeah, isn't so much a "crossover" as it is "Ghost in the Shell meets FFXIV," but it's more than just a futuristic AU. It was basically one lengthy excuse to flex with several of my personal knowledge sets, and was a heck of a challenge to get so many "moving parts" working smoothly, and I'm quite proud of it \o/

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? Not yet, to my knowledge, and I'm hoping it stays that way. Hooray, I'm too unimportant! :P

12. have you ever had a fic translated? I haven't had that, either. While my work is interesting, there's just not been enough interest in getting it translated/localized

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? Yet again, nope. I've got a few RPs with a couple of people, but as far as fics go, I've always been working on my own

14. what's your all-time favourite ship? OOF, that's a hard one. I've got a lot that make my brain go brrrr, but... Funny as it is, Elliott (SDV) and my OC (Lysander). I played Elliott's romance route the first time I played SDV because he looked like a sweetie (and an aspiring writer? Heck yes!), and was floored at how closely our respective stories/motivations/desires paralleled. I'd been wanting to pursue a writing career for ages as well, but never had the courage, so after completing his story and seeing him find success with his novel after we helped him get there, I smashed down my fear and gave writing fic a go, at the same time fully developing and fleshing out an OC I'd had a hard time properly giving life. And the success with that series gave me the confidence and experience to keep doing more fics, and eventually my own original works. I just got a second original short story accepted for publication last year, so yeah, those two will forever be precious to me <3

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Probably "Rose and Sunflower 4." I've got a few ideas (technically, I have ideas for both a fourth AND a fifth book), but with work and life just being loopy, and lacking proper meds for ADHD and other things, I just don't have the spell slots at the moment. I'm also neck-deep in my FFXIV OC's lore, doing a crazy long series that follows his own version of the story, and that's taking up pretty much all of my writing time not devoted to specific projects for exchanges or events or the like :-\

16. what are your writing strengths? Action sequences, and character-driven dialogue. Again, "Ishguardians" was the opportunity to write an action film, more or less, and I have a surprising knack for not only snappy one-liners and comebacks, but also some deeply raw and heartfelt moments. I've got range :D

17. what are your writing weaknesses? I am shit at creating conflict. It's why I've not been able to get a writing career completely off the ground. I'm an engineer, a gamer, and a soldier; I solve problems on purpose! So deliberately creating situations that drive the plot and characters that doesn't feel contrived or "but this shouldn't actually be a problem/a thing" is genuinely difficult for me

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Done right, it can add to the work. I've done it myself, as while my OCs aren't necessarily multilingual, they have picked up a few phrases and the like, so now and then that gets used to convey something specific in a scene. My personal rule is that if I haven't taken at least Level 1 in a language myself, I don't use it. Because while I can use Google Translate or the like to get my result, I still want to check it myself to make sure it's got the right context/grammar/whatever, which can sometimes be lost with automatic translation. ...But, since I've done level 1 with about six or seven languages so far, I've got a decent range to work with ;P

19. first fandom you wrote for? Stardew Valley. I had tried to write for something else in the past, like, in the 90s, but I don't remember what it was, and I crumpled it all up/deleted it before I could post it anywhere, so it's all been (thankfully) memory holed and lost to time. SDV was my first true foray into fics and creative writing. Well, creative writing that I actually enjoyed >_>

20. favourite fic you've written? Again, oof, that's tough. It's a tie between R&S1 and "A Song of Memories," as both are my OC's stories in SDV and FFXIV respectively, but R&S was where I finally took the terrifying plunge into fics, and therefore started my career as an author. Conversely, ASoM is a goddamn epic, and all of my strengths as a writer, storyteller, and worldbuilder are on full display. The R&S series still holds up, and you can definitely see what the characters would "evolve" into in ASoM, as well as looking back and seeing just how much of R&S influenced them :)

Okay! Time to tag some d00ds so they can have their turn! @yaminohere, @burgiethewriter, @nateharmonica, and @nanasamantha, feel free to have at it! I had wanted to tag a few more people, but apparently I don't follow that many writers after all, and several of them haven't updated their blogs in a few years o_O

#writer asks #writing stuff #my post #writing #fanfiction #fanfic #writing memes

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canarias-stuff · 11 months

Text

A STORY FOR 🎃🕸TDDK HALLOWEEK 2023!🕸🎃

Based on Day 2 Prompts: Mirrors / Haunted / "Ghosts never speak till spoken to."

SUMMARY:

“You came back?” Was the first thing that the mirror said, a curious expression on his face. “I thought that you were done here?”

“What are you?” Todoroki asked, ignoring the mirror’s question.

“I already told you, I am a ghost.”

“I spent my whole weekend researching supernatural stuff, my google looks like I am ready to be a ghost hunter, but things still don't make sense! Your existence still doesn’t make sense!” Shouto spilled, his frustration at the topic leaking with every word. “I can see you, but I can’t prove your existence with numbers or logic! And this is so weird, because, what the hell am I doing?! Talking with a mirror?! The only logical explanation here is that I am finally crazy!”

Woah!, Shouto thought, surprised by his own outburst. Last time that he got to say so much in just one breath was at Asui’s 18th birthday party when he got really drunk, and was explaining why people should eat soba instead of ramen.

Or, a TodoDeku story where Todoroki talks with a ghost trapped inside a mirror.

Ao3 link:

“Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“What?! You didn’t hear about it?!”

“About what?!”

“It appeared!”

“What appeared?!”

“The ghost!”

…

Medical student Todoroki Shouto was a science type of person. Math, biology, physics and chemistry make a lot of sense, you can prove stuff using logic, numbers, chemical experiments, and you can show people that a bacteria exists using a microscope.

As long as you can give concrete proofs about something, that exists. It's not a rumor or gossip. Numbers and logic don’t lie. It shows you a fact, and even if you don’t understand why you should use that formula, as long as you use that, anyone will have the same result.

It is a fact. It is rational.

But that is his opinion, as a logical person. People are free to believe in whatever they want, but Shouto just didn’t understand why other people were so adamant on believing in…ghosts.

For some reason, since he arrived at his class that morning, the students from all departments were gossiping about the oldest building in the campus - the one that right now was under renovation. From what Shouto heard so far, something, a ghost of all things, showed up there.

He didn’t care about it, zombies and vampires could be spotted around the old building and he still wouldn't care, so he ignored the rumors and continued his day. Or so he did until lunchtime.

“So, Tsuyu-chan told me that Toga-chan told her that someone from the art department went to the oldest building in the campus because of a bet.” Uraraka said as soon as she sat at their regular table in the gardens.

“Oh, is that about the rumors that I’ve been hearing since morning?” Yaoyorozu asked, unwrapping a big sized (and really expensive looking) bento. “About the ghost?”

Todoroki had to control himself, or he would roll his mismatched eyes over this ridiculous gossip.

“I also heard about it.” Jirou commented, pointing her chopsticks at no one in particular. “And the students are also posting a lot of comments and stories about the rumors on the official students page on twitter.”

“Even the teachers had their own opinions about it.” Iida added, fixing the position of his glasses on his face. “Hizashi-sensei was yelli- I mean, sharing his ideas for 10 minutes.”

“This is ridiculous.”

Four pairs of eyes turned to look at the white and red haired boy, who was munching his soba undisturbed by the stories.

“A ghost. Really?”

“Come on Todoroki! You don’t have to sound so annoyed. It’s just for fun.”

“I just can’t understand what is so fun, Jirou.” He admitted, expression serious. “Why do people insist on telling stories about ghosts? It doesn't even exist, it’s so obvious it is a lie, and everyone still gossip and speculate about it.”

“Woah! Sometimes I forget that you are the ‘it doesn't exist until it’s proved the opposite’ type of person!” The short haired brunette girl whistled amused by her friend's comment. “But anyway, it’s not a lie.”

“And how do you know?” He arched a perfect red eyebrow. “Where is the proof?”

“It’s not a lie, but I also didn't say it’s true. It’s a rumor.”

“...It’s a lie.”

“Todoroki-san, just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” Yaoyorozu interrupted, her voice soft and understanding. “I know that you are skeptical about this kind of stuff, but some people believe and you have to respect it, okay?”

“Sorry…I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“I know.”

“But.” He added. “I just don’t…understand.”

“I know what you mean.” Iida seconded. “I am a math and physics student, so I understand that logically speaking, ghosts and the supernatural in general are something that challenges everything that we learn.”

“Oh guys, come on!” Ochako grunted. “You don’t have to believe! Just think that this kind of story appears once in a while for the college student’s fun experiences! I mean, remember back in our school days when people were always gossiping about the School Seven Mysteries? Here at college it is not so different!”

“Uraraka is right, you don't have to believe." Kyouka nodded. "I don't believe it either because I never saw a ghost or whatever, but still, it is fun when people do courage tests and other events."

Well, Todoroki could agree with it. It was fun to see Kaminari and Ashido, two of their high school friends, run around the forest after being hit with a piece of konjaku during a courage test during their senior year.

"By the way, what are the rumors saying?" The tallest girl in the group asked. "I didn't hear about the specifics about the rumors…I was too worried about the mock test…"

"Well, Tsuyu-chan said that this art student went to the storage in the old building because they lost a bet."

"You already said it." Todoroki commented.

She didn't mind Todoroki and continued.

"The thing is, there is a story about a mirror in the storage room."

"A mirror?" Iida sais retorically.

"There's a rumor…"

"Again a rumor…"

"Be quiet, Todoroki!" Jirou snapped.

"...that says that the spirit of a student is locked inside the mirror, and if you call it, it will answer any question. Some people say that it can even tell you about your future."

"And what do we need to say to call it?" Momo asked, genuinely curious about the story.

"Mirror mirror of mine."

They stared at Uraraka.

"What?" Jirou asked dumbfound.

"Yeah, I know, kind of a Snow White punchline, but that's what the rumors say!"

"Seems like Snow White will show up in the mirror." Shouto lips curved up, amused. "Or the seven dwarfs."

"As long as it is not the Evil Queen, anyone is okay." Ochako giggled. "But anyway, the thing is, the student said these words, and something really showed up in the mirror!"

"His reflection. It's a mirror." Came Todoroki dry comment, but his friends ignored him as Ochako continued the story.

"Unfortunately, the student freaked out and left, so we don't really know if the ghost in the mirror can tell you about the future or something like that." She sighed disappointed.

"That's a shame." The ponytail girl said, a hand on her cheek. "If this is true, I would like to know what I am doing in the future so I can prepare better."

"You already do good enough, Yaomomo." The short black haired girl tried to cheer her best friend, patting her on the back. “But it does sound like the kind of story that people would gossip around the campus.”

“Don’t you think so?!” The brunette exclaimed. “If I wasn’t already scared of the old building alone, I would like to take a peek at the mirror and ask the ghost how I can become rich!”

“It’s a mirror.” Todoroki repeated. “It will show your image, and that’s already an answer for your question. Only you can make yourself rich.”

Uraraka rolled her eyes.

“So why don’t you go there and tell me if it’s real or not?”

“Why should I?”

Their friends looked back and forth from those two, clearly, something interesting would come now.

“You want proof that ghosts don’t exist, so go to the old building and call the ghost.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“No, this is science.” Ochako grinned. “You prove theories by trying them, right? So say ‘mirror mirror of mine’ and see what happens. You will prove a point, and entertain your curious friends! It’s a win-win situation!”

Mismatched eyes stared at the brown ones for a moment.

Todoroki sighed.

“Fine.”

…

The sky was already a dark shade of orange and purple when Shouto’s classes ended that day. His friends were probably gone by now, fridays were the days that his classes last longer than the other majors, and no matter how much his friends love him, they definitely love their early freedom on fridays more.

He was tired, and had a lot of homework and a new project to start, but when he was passing by near the old building, the conversation with Uraraka came to his mind.

Proof.

If he goes inside now, he can show Uraraka that rumors are rumors and that ghosts don’t exist, and the earlier he does it the better, or Uraraka would definitely say something like he is afraid of entering the building or whatever.

He approached the building and pushed the door open, a loud crack sound echoed in the empty hallways, and for a split second Todoroki thought that this scenario looked like one from a horror movie that his friends forced him to watch years ago.

There were a lot of paint cans, wood and other tools like hammers and saws scattered around, after all, the college was indeed renovating the building, but no one was there, probably all the workers left early. Well, it’s friday.

“By the way.” Todoroki abruptly stopped walking, mismatched eyes looking around. “Which room has the mirror?”

Of all things to forget, he forgot to ask Uraraka where he was supposed to find the mirror.

…

The sun was long gone when he finally found a storage room for the theater and arts department. The room was filled with costumes, boxes with makeup, brushes and paint, there was some cardbords and signs stacked in one of the corners of the room, but the flashlight of his phone wasn’t good enough to distinguish what was written or draw on them, and Shouto didn’t want to turn on the lights of the building, the last thing he wanted was the security coming by and ask what he was doing there.

Going deep inside the storage, something reflected the light of his flashlight.

A mirror. A full length mirror hanging on the wall.

“Must be this one.”

A rectangular mirror with a golden frame. There was a crack from the top right corner to the bottom left corner, slightly distorting his reflection. Shouto put his phone on the floor and grabbed the mirror, taking it from the wall and turning it around to take a look behind it. It was heavy, but then again, the mirror was glued at a wood surface.

He inspected the object for a full minute, but nothing was wrong with it. It was a normal old mirror that the arts department probably dropped, but was too lazy to throw in the trash.

There’s just one thing left to do. Todoroki thought, putting the mirror back at the wall.

He stared at his reflection, his mouth opened.

“Mirror mirror of mine…” What was he supposed to say now? A question? What should he ask? He didn’t have anything in particular to ask anyway. “...Is there anyone more beautiful than me?”

Okay. What the hell just came out of his mouth? He joked about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but his brain must have had a really bad short circuit, because what the hell he just said?! Thank God no one was there to hear that…

A giggled.

…or so he thought.

“Who is there?” Shouto called, eyes looking around the room, because he heard someone giggled.

“Well, so far, you are the prettiest person I have ever seen." Someone said, voice muffled. "But this is just my opinion."

The college student turned his head, once more looking at his reflection in the mirror, this time though, his reflection was not alone.

Big emerald eyes, curly and fluffy green hair, cheeks painted on freckles that looked like stars, and an amused but sincere smile.

"Hello!" The boy in the mirror said when their eyes met, the smile still playing on his lips.

Todoroki flinched. WHAT.THE.HELL?

"Oh, you are the first one that doesn't run away on the spot!"

There must be a logical explanation for this, Todoroki told himself, because how is it possible that...that...an image(?) was talking with him?

"Hum...? Hey?" The mirror waved a hand. "Are you okay? Oh, please, just don't pass out here!"

"I..." He cleared his throat. "I won't." Shouto found his voice again, mismatched eyes never leaving the mirror.

"Thanks god! I was really worried for a second!" And the mirror sighed like he was really relieved.

Shouto studied the mirror again. Was it really a mirror? Maybe it was a screen and someone made a really good job programming an A.I?

"I am not a TV, app or A.I." The green haired boy said amused, and Shouto flinched again, surprised that he was muttering.

"So..." He couldn't believe what he was about to ask. "...what are you?"

"Not 'Who are you' but 'What are you' ..." The boy paused. "I would like to say that I am a person, but people call me a ghost."

A ghost.

Hah. Great.

"Ghosts don't exist." Shouto denied, not wanting to believe in what he was looking at right now.

The boy in the mirror blinked a few times, pointed a finger at his own face, and arched an eyebrow.

"But I am right here...?"

"You're not a ghost."

"If I am not one, then what exactly am I?"

"...I don't know... yet ."

"Oh! I see!" The mirror snapped a finger, face suddenly lighting up. "You are shocked! Or just in denial!"

"I am not!" Todoroki grunted. What was happening? He was arguing with a mirror? He must be dreaming or gone insane! Where was the logic that he liked so much?

"Sure~"

Was the boy in the mirror sassing him?

"Anyway, did you just come here to ask me that?"

"What?"

"I mean, did you really ask me the same question that the Evil Queen used to ask her mirror?"

"I didn't know what to ask." Todoroki replied dryly, and then added. "And I didn't believe or expect that something would answer me at all."

"Well, I answered, so what do you want to do now?"

Shouto stared at the boy, analyzing him. Now that he calmed down and was trying to better assess the situation, he could see that the boy was wearing some kind of costume, like a jumpsuit, and black ironed shoes. The green haired boy was probably shorter than him and around his age. If this was some kind of prank, the mirror boy sure was doing a good job.

"I am leaving." Shouto said suddenly, grabbing his phone that was still on the floor, and turning his back to the mirror.

"Oh." He heard, and it sounded really sad. "Bye bye."

The red and white haired college student closed the door behind his back and quickly left the building.

...

Todoroki didn't tell his friends about the mirror. He spent all weekend searching for logical explanations for what happened at the old building, because as a scientific person, how could he accept that whatever he saw that day was a…ghost?

No. No way.

There must be a logical answer for that. So he researched, and researched and researched. The algorithms for his google showing now, articles about ghosts and other supernatural figures, people trying to hunt said ghosts or communicate with them.

When monday arrived, Todoroki did his best to avoid his friends, because right now he was a man on a mission to prove that whatever was that person he saw in the mirror, was not a ghost.

…

Shouto lied to Iida, saying that he would go to the college library to study for a mock test, and being a serious student, Iida nodded and walked away, proud of his best friend.

Now, the half white and half red haired student was standing in front of the mirror, on a late monday afternoon, glaring at his own reflection and waiting for the green haired boy to show up.

“Hey, where are you?” Shouto said, but the mirror was still only showing his reflection. He pondered for a second. Was the ‘mirror mirror of mine’ a condition for the other boy to show up? He should try. “Mirror mirror of mine, where are you?”

He blinked, and on the next instant, green eyes were staring back at his own mismatched ones.

“You came back?” Was the first thing that the mirror said, a curious expression on his face. “I thought that you were done here?”

“What are you?” Todoroki asked, ignoring the mirror’s question.

“I already told you, I am a ghost.”

Woah! , Shouto thought, surprised by his own outburst. Last time that he got to say so much in just one breath was at Asui’s 18th birthday party when he got really drunk, and was explaining why people should eat soba instead of ramen.

“...Are you done?” The mirror asked.

“...Yes.” The student answered, sitting in front of the mirror.

“What is your name?”

“Todoroki Shouto.” There was a pause. “And you?”

“Well…I am not really sure.” The boy said sincerely. “But I remember someone calling me Midoriya something. Well, something that sounds like Deku.”

“Deku?” Shouto parroted. “That…sounds mean.”

“Yeah, I know. But if this is my name…well, that’s fine.” The mirror, Midoriya, shrugged. “Why…did you come back? People usually leave here crying and shouting and never come back, but you…are here.”

“I am trying to understand your…existence.” And Shouto was trying really hard. “People die, and that’s it. The end. There’s no life after you die.”

“Some things can't be explained. And I am some kind of proof, right? After all, you can’t really pinpoint why I exist, and I don’t think any scientist would understand either, I don’t understand, and I’ve been here for a while.” Deku commented, but there was no arrogance in his voice, he was just saying what he really believed.

“How long? I mean, how long have you been trapped?”

“Hum…that’s a difficult question.” Midoriya looked pensive. “After a while you kind of lose track of the time, since I can only appear if someone says those Evil Queen’s speech. So, yeah, it could be days, months or years, but I bet that I’ve been here for a couple of years.”

“That…sounds…”

“Sad? Lonely?”

“I was about to say boring, but it fits too.”

This time Midoriya laughed, and Shouto couldn't control the small smile that appeared on his own lips.

“Yes, it is boring, but most of the time I feel like I am asleep, dreaming about a world and people that I can’t remember after waking up…so yeah, but I can manage something. It’s not like I’m gonna die…again.”

“Don’t you…want to be free from the mirror?” Shouto asked, taking a look at the golden frame. “Find the light or something like that?”

“Of course I want to, but I don’t even know why I am here!” The mirror boy replied, biting the inside of his cheek. “Maybe I died in front of a mirror and my soul got trapped, people say that mirrors have this power. Or maybe I am cursed? Or I am the real Evil Queen’s mirror!”

“...Don’t be ridiculous.” Todoroki deadpanned. “And how do you know this kind of stuff? I had to do plenty of research to find some legends about mirrors and their power.”

“I am amnesiac, not dumb.” Came the reply, and then the laughter. “I don’t know either, I like to think that I was curious about a lot of stuff when I was alive, and even if I forgot my name, I still have the knowledge that I got during my life.”

“Remembering your name would be better.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. There’s no way to know.”

They went silent, Deku humming a soft melody that Shouto never heard, but it was nice.

“Do you…want to know your name?”

Emerald eyes stared at him.

“What?”

“I said, do you want to know your name?”

“Well, of course I want to, but how…”

“I will do some research, try to find a clue about you, and with luck, we can get a name.”

“Would you…do something like this…for me?” Shouto didn’t know that a ghost or mirror could cry, but the small droplets at the corner of Midoriya’s green eyes were tears. No mistake.

“If I can’t explain rationally stuff like ghosts, I would like to at least prove that someone by the name ‘Midoriya something like Deku’ one day was a living person.”

“Thank you.” Midoriya said between sobs, hands trying to stop the tears that keep falling. “Thank you.”

And for the first time since all that crazy experience started, Shouto felt like something was right.

...

The days passed by, and Shouto would visit Midoriya every day. It was fun, Midoriya was a good listener and was really intelligent, he would always give Shouto his opinions on the papers that a teacher would score, and mutter over small things.

Shouto didn't even notice when he stopped caring about the logic behind Midoriya's existence.

...

“Another test?!” Uraraka exclaimed, clearly indignant. “How many mock tests have your teachers passed you in the last two weeks?!”

“I lost track after the third one.” Jirou commented, not really giving a shit about Todoroki’s possible suffering. “That’s medical students for you.”

“Ugh! This way you will never have enough time to check the old building!” The brunette complained, and Shouto had to control his usual stoic expression. “The rumors are already dying, and I still don’t have an answer about the mirror!”

“Rumors are rumors anyway.” Todoroki said, not letting a single amused tone of voice escape his lips. “And if you are so curious, just go there by yourself and check it out.”

“No way! I am scared!” She cried, arms around her shoulders, trying to protect herself from an invisible threat. “What if something really shows up?”

“Then scream and run away.” He answered. Shouto wondered what Midoriya would say to whatever Uraraka asked about.

Yaoyorozu placed her chopsticks down, and stared at Todoroki for a moment, but it was long enough for Shouto to realize that the ponytail girl was looking at him.

“Something is wrong, Yaoyorozu?”

“No, not really.” The tall girl said, but her eyes still had a curious light in them. “I just feel like usually you would answer a little bit different that kind of question.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said ‘Then scream and run away’ , when usually you would say ‘Nothing's gonna show up’ .”

“Ah. That’s true.” Iida agreed. “That would sound more like Todoroki-kun.”

“Heh~” Ochako hummed, amused. “Have you finally accepted that a ghost may exist, Todoroki-kun?”

“I never said that.” He stated, trying his best to keep his cool. “I just gave you a logical solution for a hypothetical situation. Or would you stay put and wait for something to jump on you like those stupid people from horror movies?"

“Of course I would run away! No way that I am dying like that!”

“I thought so.”

“Yaomomo, that is a totally Todoroki kind of answer.” Kyouka nudged her taller friend.

“I guess so.” Momo sighed and went back to her lunch.

Crisis averted.

…

“Why do you wear a jumpsuit?” Todoroki asked one day.

“Hum…I wonder why…” Deku answered. “But they are pretty comfy.”

“It’s weird.”

“No, it’s cool! Makes me look like a superhero!”

“Are you a kid?”

“I look around your age though?”

…

“Why do we need to say ‘Mirror mirror of mine’ to call you?”

“I don’t know. But it’s kind of fun!”

“For you.”

“Of course! Or maybe there’s a rule like ‘Ghosts never speak till spoken to’.”

…

“Someone came here today.” Deku said.

“What did they ask?” Todoroki asked, eyes never leaving his anatomy book.

“They asked about you.”

“About me?” He got his coffee, taking a sip of the drink.

“Well, the exact words were, ‘Mirror mirror of mine, how many children me and Todoroki Shouto will be blessed with? ’.”

Shouto spatted the coffee and coughed, Deku laughed the whole afternoon after that.

…

“You are popular.”

Shouto arched his eyebrow.

“Why do you say it?”

“I mean, people keep coming here, and your name appears a lot on their questions.” Midoriya smirked. “Do you want to know what they asked?”

The red an white haired student glared at the mirror.

“Let me get a coffee, and this time I can spat all my coffee in the mirror.”

“That’s gross!” The green haired boy laughed, and Shouto's expression softened seeing the mirror so relaxed.

“It would be your fault.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

…

“Todoroki-kun…do you have a girlfriend?” Deku asked one day, freckled cheeks slightly pink, and for some reason, Shouto felt his own getting hot. “Or a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Hum…and do you…like someone…?”

That question was really tricky. Shouto should lie, but just one look at Deku’s face was enough for the college student to spill everything.

“Yes, I do.”

“Oh…I see.”

After that, Midoriya changed topics, and didn’t comment about it anymore, and neither did Shouto.

…

“Mirror mirror of mine, why can't I find anything about you?”

That was the first thing that he told the mirror that afternoon.

“I don’t know.” Deku said as soon as his image appeared in the mirror, a small smile on his lips.

“...I am sorry, Midoriya.” Shouto apologized, sitting in front of the mirror, a defeated expression on his face.

“Don’t make this face, it’s not your fault that apparently, I am a difficult person to find.” Midoriya joked, trying to lighten up the mood. “You’ve been researching for almost two months, you are using your precious time on stuff that you didn’t even need to.”

“But!”

“It’s okay. Really.”

“I thought…that I could prove that you existed.” Todoroki frowned, eyes looking at the floor and hands closing around the fabrics of his pants. “I thought that I could help you…”

“Todoroki-kun, look at me.”

“I can’t…”

“Yes, you can.”

Slowly, mismatched eyes looked up to find gentle green ones.

“You don’t have to wear such a painful expression.” The boy in the mirror commented, a gentle and soft smile on his lips. “It’s not your fault that there’s no information about me. Maybe I died so long ago that there is no data at all. Don’t blame yourself for stuff that you don't have control over.”

“I just wanted to find your name.” He muttered.

“I have one. Midoriya Deku.”

“You are not sure.

“I am, because is the name that you call me, right?”

“Midoriya…”

“Yes, that’s my name.” Deku smiled.

…

Something changed by the end of the second month since Shouto met the boy in the mirror.

“I hear someone calling my name when I am sleeping.” Midoriya said during one of their conversations.

“Your real name?!”

Deku shakes his head.

“No, they call me ‘Midoriya’.”

Shouto stared at the boy in a jumpsuit, Midoriya looked like he wasn’t telling him everything, but demanding answers was never a good option, he should be patient and wait until the grenette was ready to talk.

“Maybe it is a piece of your memory.” Todoroki tried, and green eyes stared at him. “And soon you will get an answer.”

“Yes, maybe.”

…

Three months after he met Deku, something felt off.

Shouto woke up that morning feeling like something was wrong. His alarm didn’t go off, he woke up 30 minutes before the alarm, and occurrences like that were rare since he wasn’t a morning person.

It was raining outside, the sky was gray, and once in a while he could hear the sound of cars running over water puddles. Usually he didn’t mind rainy days, but that morning, that kind of weather wasn’t helping him get rid of the wrongness inside his chest.

Midoriya.

The name of the boy in the mirror was the first thing that came to mind.

He wanted to see Midoriya no matter what.

…

“Midoriya!” He exclaimed, pushing the storage room open and going straight to the mirror, forgetting for a second that calling his name like that didn’t work. “Mirror mirror of mine, where is Midoriya?”

The clock ticked.

One, two, three, four, five…a full minute.

But Midoriya didn’t appear,and that made Shouto panic.

“Mirror mirror of mine, where is Midoriya?!” He tried again, however nothing but his reflection was there. “Midoriya! Hey! Midoriya!”

“...Todoroki-kun.”

The voice, that familiar and sweet voice came from behind him. Slowly Shouto turned his body, and behind him, was a shorter green haired boy, with emerald like eyes, and freckles that looked like the stars, wearing a green jumpsuit and black ironed shoes.

“Midoriya…”

“Hi.” The boy waved.

“You…” Shouto said dumbfounded, approaching Deku carefully, as if a single hasty gesture would scare him away. “...are free.”

“Yes…looks like that.” Deku agreed, not moving from his place.

“How…?”

“I had a dream last night, or more like I retrieved my memories.” He said, and when Shouto stayed silent, he continued. “I remembered why I was stuck inside the mirror.”

“Did you…” But Todoroki didn’t have the courage to finish that sentence, because right now, everything was too real.

“No, I am alive.” Deku said, and Shouto felt his heartbeat skyrocket. “And I’ve been alive for a really long time, when something called quirks were still going around the world.”

“Quirks?”

“Something like superpowers, I would say. Can you imagine a society where we had heroes and heroines running around the city saving people’ lives?” Deku explained, a little bit more excited. “That kind of explains why I am wearing a jumpsuit that looks like a Halloween costume.”

“Midoriya,” Shouto called, trying to make the boy come back to track.

“The thing is, there was a villain…her quirk allowed her to trap people inside a mirror, and I think she died before someone could figure out where I went. Time passed, and I was probably sleeping all these years, no one found me, and the first time I woke up, people were scared of me.”

“What was the condition to get you out of the mirror?” Shouto asked, stopping in front of Midoriya that didn’t back off.

“I had to remember my name.” Midoriya replied, a nervous look on his face. “For a few weeks, I felt like someone was calling me in my dreams…or memories, and last night…they finally said my real name.”

“...can you finally introduce yourself?” Shouto asked, lips quivering.

A few tears fell from Deku’s green eyes, but he smiled.

“Yes, I can.”

“So, mirror mirror of mine, can you tell me your name?”

“Nice to meet you, I am Midoriya Izuku.”

“Izuku…” Todoroki tried the name. “Izuku.”

It was perfect.

“Do you want to know who was calling me?”

Shouto nodded.

“Ask the question.”

“Mirror mirror of mine, tell me, who was it?”

“Someone that I loved so much, and fell in love once again.” Izuku said, loving eyes staring at mismatched ones. “Do you know someone that goes by the name, Todoroki Shouto?”

…

“Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“What?! You didn’t hear about it?!”

“About what?!”

“It appeared!”

“What appeared?!”

“The ghost!”

“Oh, is that about the rumor about the ghost trapped inside the mirror hanging on the wall of the storage room in the old building?”

“Yes!”

“No way, there is no ghost there.”

“And how do you know?”

“Because I heard it from a student whose grandfather used to study here. Did you know that is not a horror story? It’s actually a romance?”

“What? A romance?”

“Yep! They said that once upon a time there was a hero who was imprisoned within a mirror, waiting for his soulmate to appear, because that was the only way he could recover his memories and break free from his glassy confinement, so one day he could get together once again with his loved one.”

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #fanfiction #ao3 #fluffy #friends #angst #romance #mirror #haunted #story prompts #drama #fanfic #midoriya izuku #todoroki shouto #tododeku #tddk #tddkhalloweek2023 #halloween

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alyssalikestoreadbooks · 2 months

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Just As Long As We're Together - Judy Blume

"Can you have more than one best friend?

Stephanie’s best friend is Rachel. Since second grade they’ve shared everything, good and bad. But now it’s the start of seventh grade and Alison has just moved to their neighborhood. Stephanie immediately clicks with her—she’s cool and fun and totally humble even though she’s the daughter of a famous actress. Stephanie hopes all three of them can be best friends, but the more she pushes Alison on Rachel, the more Rachel seems to drift away. Is it possible to have two best friends? Or is it true that two’s company, three’s a crowd?"

Read Date - July 2024

Length - 202 pages

Genre - Realistic Fiction, Coming Of Age, Contemporary

Rating - 7/10

Stars - ★★★★☆

Notes - This book being about middle schoolers is sweet, because I didn’t read when I was a teen. It’s like a little insight into the world of what could have been. The lingering plot line of the talking dog is one that is sweet. They’re all young, and they’re gullible (except for one of the girls) and they still have their youthful whimsy. Bruce having nightmares about nuclear war is interesting and provides depth to his character. Them writing letters to the president was bittersweet, and its nice that his family helps out. The girls finding out that Stephanie’s mom is famous was another interesting scene because you see how the girls are so shocked by it, but to Stephanie, it’s just normal. There’s nothing extravagant about it for her. Alyson revealing that she lied to be friends with Stephanie and Rachel was adorable and it shows that-- they’re just kids. Kids having fun and navigating life. Rachel getting transferred to advanced math makes Stephanie feel like they’re drifting apart even though they’re still together. The reveal that Stephanie’s parents are splitting up was shocking and I wasn’t expecting that. Peter sharing his shampoo with Stephanie was adorable, and i think its a nice way to show interest between the two. The girls obsession with periods reminds me of my own friendships i had growing up with girls, where we all sit there talking about our future and what we want to develop. The mentions of weight are interesting but i’m unsure how productive they are. A lot of the times, when weight is mentioned in a book, it’s a bad thing. Stephanie doesn’t take it as a bad thing, and instead, uses it against her father. Stephanie lashing out at Iris is realistic to how children may react to new relationships in the family, especially this early into the separation. Steph still has hope for her parents, no matter how wrong she is about it. Bruce winning his position for the peace project was a smart way to write a solution to the nightmares that have been happening about nuclear war. Bruce wants peace, it’s as simple as that! Rachel and Stephanie growing apart is sad but makes sense, because sometimes you just grow apart as people. That’s life. The blowout between the two was a really good scene and i liked the way it played out if im being honest. Rachel pents up her anger until it comes spilling out of her. Stephanie getting her period on her birthday was a cute moment where she finally feels grown up. Them getting their first kiss the same night was also so sweet, and she really did grow up! Alison finding out her mom was pregnant was also a big twist that i wasn’t expecting! Her wanting to keep it secret makes sense, especially when Stephanie’s mom is friends with Alison’s mom. She’s worried that she wont be good enough as a daughter if her mom has a biological child, since she’s adopted. Rachel and Stephanie making up with each other was a bit rushed but it was a cute scene. It recreated the things they did as kids and its a nice call back. The cliffhanger was nice and didn’t cause enough tension, and you wouldnt NEED a sequel to exist (thought it’s set up for one).

#Books #Book #Reading #Reader #Books And Reading #Bookworm #Bookblr #Book Reviews #Review #Book Blog #Book Lover #Bookish #Book Community #Bookstagram #Booktok #just as long as we're together #judy blume

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david3096 · 9 months

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If it's raining

My second Parksborn fic is here! This one is inspired on @moxielynx amazing art that you can see here

Here's a little preview, you can read the whole fic on AO3

“You know what the worst part of all this is?” Peter mutters with some weariness but delight. Right now, he's sitting and leaning against the trunk of an old tree, while Harry rests his head between Peter's legs. “I'm not even worried that we missed school.” He starts stroking his boyfriend's hair and they smile at each other.

“Okay, you need to get away from me.” Harry teases. “I'm starting to think our teachers are right, I'm a bad influence.”

“Oh come on, you say that like I'm way too innocent.” Harry tilts his head slightly, it's all he needs to know what his boyfriend truly thinks. “Besides, it's not like you're completely a cool guy, you're also a nerd.”

“But I’m a slightly cooler nerd than you.” Harry teases him and then grabs his hand. “You know I'm only joking, right?” Peter is slightly short of breath, butterflies appear in his stomach, his lips tingle.

It's not the first time it's happened to him, since almost two months ago he started to feel these symptoms. The first time he thought he was about to get a cold, the second time, that he would have a new power, the third time he realized that the cause of this was always Harry. Now that he has lost count of the number of times he has had these symptoms, he knows it's love.

“I know, but that doesn't stop me from being offended.” He says, instead of the words he feels in his throat. He's sure if he let those three little words slip out he could ruin everything.

“I'm sorry, I really am.” There is honesty in Harry's voice and face. “You're handsome and the coolest guy in the world.”

“Why do I feel like you're making fun of me?”

“Who, me?” Harry uses the most sarcastic tone he's ever heard him use. “Let's change the subject, what does May think we're doing?”

“She thinks we're at MJ's house finishing the science project.”

“The one we finished last week?”

“Yeah, that one.” He keeps running his hands gently over his boyfriend's hair, the urge to tell him he loves him starting to subside, just a little. “I also asked MJ to cover for us.”

“How much is it going to cost you?”

“Free math tutoring for the rest of the year.”

“Tutoring? MJ is nerdier than you, I would have asked to have my homework done.”

“It's nice to find someone who wants to learn too.”

“Nerd.”

They are silent for a few seconds. It's unbelievable, but he feels the urge build a little after this interaction, even if he was making fun of him.

He looks up at the sky, it's about to get dark. He wonders how he has been able to hold back these words for so long. On so many occasions, after so many days together, so many evenings, after so many times that...

“Aren't you going to ask me what I told my father?”

“Did you lie to him? I thought he would have a busy day of meetings today.”

“That's right, but what fun would it be without a little lie?”

“Okay, Osborn, what does your father think we're doing?”

“We're at the chess club.”

“Harry, there is no chess club anymore, not since someone stole all the chess boards from the school.”

“Still don't know who did it?” Peter shakes his head. “Well, Dad doesn't know that anyway.”

They laugh and fall silent again.

It's as if time stands still. Peter can feel peace, tranquility... love. All coming together in this moment, with his fingers untangling his boyfriend's hair.

He takes a deep breath, it's been a difficult month for both of them.

Peter was too busy being Spider-Man, first it was Rhino, then Electro, finally Mysterio. Even with Yuri's help it was all too difficult.

Harry for his part had to attend several Oscorp meetings. Some with workers, others with unbearable millionaires who do not know what to do with their money and want to spend it on the first thing they come across.

They had the idea on Monday of that week. They hadn't been able to see each other for more than three minutes for four days and neither of them could remember the last time they kissed. So, while eating lunch, they planned to skip school.

Early that day, the two met at a cafeteria away from school and places May or Norman might frequent. They had hot cakes for breakfast, laughed a lot, the nice waitress didn't ask them awkward questions or tell them they should be at school.

Then they wandered around town, as if they were tourists, walked and walked and talked and laughed. At lunchtime they decided to go to the park they always visited when they were kids, the one near May's house. They ate hot dogs and sat under the shade of the tree. They haven't moved since.

“What's on your mind, Peanut?”

“I still don't approve of that nickname.” He warns him, but his boyfriend just laughs.

“Oh come on, it's perfect for you.” Harry grins gently. “What's on your mind?” He repeats, softly. “You seem kind of absent.”

“I'm thinking about you.” Peter replies with honesty. “About how it was a good idea to skip school, about how cute you look now...” And how much I love you.

“Now I feel bad, I was thinking it would be nice to buy pizza for dinner.” Peter can't help but laugh. He leans over to give him a little kiss on the lips. “Sometimes it amazes me how romantic you can be. I like you.”

“And I like you.” Harry laughs. It's clear that this is the way things should be, that they've only been dating for six months and that no matter how many years they've been friends, romantic relationships should take a different, slower pace, right?

“I dislike you, if I'm really honest.” Harry replies sarcastically. “Seriously, I like you too.”

He sighs, wanting to keep his mind off his feelings for a while.

“Do you want to do something?”

“Like what?”

“I don't know, I was hoping you'd come up with something.”

“We could make out behind that bush.”

“Or we could go to your place instead.”

“Parker!” Harry feigns surprise. “You're such a horny boy.”

“You suggested the idea of making out!” He tries to defend himself, the blush already on his face.

“I know.”Harry says nonchalantly. “But I don't know what time Dad will be home. I don't think we'll have time to do it... all.”

“Then we'll have to settle for playing some game.”

“A sport? I don't want to move, nugget.”

“I didn't approve of that nickname either.” He laughs. “But I was thinking of something quieter, something to keep us here.”

“Like what?”

“Twenty questions?”

“After playing it five times today, I think it's kind of boring.” Harry straightens up slowly. He arranges his hair and puts on his blue cap. Then he leans back against the log next to Peter. “We could ask each other questions.”

“Like truth or dare?”

“I was thinking more like truth or truth.” Harry looks around, the park is pretty empty for a Friday. “I mean, just ask each other questions. About anything.”

“Oh, okay, sounds like fun.” Peter pulls their bodies a little closer together, takes Harry by the hand. “Do you think we should make some rules or something?”

“I don't think they're necessary.”

“All right, then start.”

“Me? Why me?”

“It was your idea, Osborn.”

“But the youngest should start, Parker.”

“You're only two months older.”

“You're still the youngest.”

“Then let the best-looking one should start.” Peter smiles and gives him a little shove on the shoulder. “It's your turn, then.”

“Are you out of your mind? Either you need to buy other mirrors or those glasses need a check-up, Parker, the best looking one is you.” Harry shoves him back, he doesn't seem to be lying or trying to get out of the situation.

“Of course I'm not.” He moves his face closer to his boyfriend's, looks at his eyes, his nose, then his lips. They are so close together that he could almost kiss him, but he does not. “If I were, I wouldn't have even considered going out with you.”

“Hey, that was mean.” But still his boyfriend lets out a little laugh.

“That's how cute I think you are, to turn me into a horrible, vicious being.” Peter fakes a ghoulish voice, trying to sound like a monster.

“More like you're cute and clueless.” Harry kisses him on the cheek. “That's why I like you.”

“Okay, then I'll use that against you.” He smiles, tries to make a cute, tender face. “You start Harry, please.”

“Ugh, I hate that it worked.” They both laugh again, maybe it's absurd and MJ has told them they are so cute and romantic that sometimes it gets tiring and a little bit gross, but he doesn't care. “Okay, I'll start.”Harry sounds a little frustrated but rests his head on Peter's shoulder and it calms him down.

Neither says anything for about two minutes, they look around, there are kids playing on the swings in front of them, others playing ball, a couple walking their dogs, it's an almost quiet night.

“Okay.” Harry lifts his head and intertwines his fingers with Peter's. “Would you rather vacation at the beach or in the woods?”

#parksborn #parksborn fanfic #peter parker x harry osborn #peter parker #harry osborn #my writing #they are so in love #i think this is the fluffiest thing i have ever written #can't believe it took me so long to finish this

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i-spaced-sorry · 2 years

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Optimal Road Trip

Characters: Jay Halstead x Hailey Upton x Halstead!Sister Summary: Halstead!Sister gets math homework and decides it needs to become a reality.

Square Filled: Road Trip for @resanoona 3K Fiesta Bingo (I hope this counts since it’s talking about planning a road trip)

Working overtime was standard when it came to tough cases, but the idea of getting to go home and have a rare day off for 3 days was always the best reward. However for Jay and Hailey, when they walked through their front door of their shared apartment, expecting to be able to fall into bed and pass out, instead they were greeted with a very hyper 17yr old Y/N.

“Oh good! Your home! Guess what I got assigned to do for math homework!” exclaimed Y/N as she came barreling into the front hallway.

“Well hello to you too Y/N” chuckled Jay while kicking off his shoes.

You stopped bouncing and looked very serious, “Jayyyyy, guess.”

Sighing, Jay replied, “I don't know, you got assigned to go to bed?” He wasn’t in the mood for your hyperness at 6:30pm on a Friday, when he had been up and at the station or other crime scenes at 4am most days this week.

Rolling your eyes, you replied, “In math this week we have been learning about graph theory! So our teacher Ms. Hunnicutt assigned us a project where we pick 5 cities, not including Chicago, and we have to find the most optimal route for a road trip! Isn’t that fun!”

Smiling to himself, Jay replied, “so much fun kiddo”

The couple and the youngest Halstead at this point had migrated to the couch in the living room.

Once everyone was sat down comfortably, Y/N swiped her notebook from the coffee table and started opening it to a page, “My teacher was talking about how when she was in high school, she was assigned this project and her parents had actually taken her on the road trip she created, ya know to test out the theory.” she began. “So I was thinking maybe if you guys could get the time off, we could do that?” she added while finally flipping to the page she was looking for.

Glancing at Hailey and glancing back at his sister, Jay sighed and spoke, “It depends on where you want to go. I’m not making any promises but I will hear you out on your city choices.”

And with that, Y/N smiled and began listing off her cities, “Okay, so we have Chicago - which doesn’t count - then we have New York City, any city in Puerto Rico - I need help in that realm of things - Portland Oregon, Appleton Wisconsin, and Houston Texas!” Once she listed off the cities, she looked up at her brother and sister in law and waited for them to say something…anything… but she was not prepared for what her brother did.

Jay just started laughing.

Furrowing her brows, Y/N asked, “What’s wrong with the cities I chose? New York would be so we could go see Aunt Erin. Puerto Rico would be so we can visit Uncle Antonio and Aunt Gabby, Portland was so we could see Uncle Casey, Houston was so we could see Uncle Rixton, and Appleton was so we could see Aunt Vanessa! I chose places I knew you guys would enjoy going to!”

With Jay continuously laughing, Hailey spoke up, “Y/N, those are good options if you didn’t want to go on a real road trip, but we can’t go to most of those places in a real road trip”

“Why not?” whispered Y/N, clearly not as hyped as she was at the beginning of the conversation.

Jay finally composed himself enough to side hug his sister and calmly respond, “Hailey is right kiddo. We a. Can’t possibly make it to Puerto Rico anytime soon. And both Uncle Rixton and Aunt Vanessa are deep undercover, so technically we can’t really even get in contact with them or even know where they are located at the moment.”

Your lip started to quiver as you began to tear the page out of your notebook, but before you got very far Jay stopped you.

“But let’s all sit here together and come up with some cities we can visit. I liked your idea of visiting Aunt Erin and Uncle Casey.”

So for the next 45 minutes you, Jay, and Hailey all spitball cities and people you could visit in this fictional but real road trip.

“So our final round of cities are as follows, 1. Chicago - which we said doesn’t count in the 5. 2. New York City - to see Aunt Erin, 3. Portland - to see Uncle Casey, 4. Milwaukee - to visit the Halstead family cabin, 5. Wilmington - to visit the locations of my favorite show Dawson’s Creek, and 6. Malibu - to visit the location of Jay’s favorite show MASH” recited Y/N.

Smiling, Hailey spoke, “I think those are some very nice cities and very feasible places we can visit. Jay and I will request PTO on Monday when we go in.”

Stretching his back and yawning, Jay adds, “Agreed, now if you don’t need us anymore. I think Hailey and I have a date with our pillows. Please don’t need us until at least 11 am tomorrow” and with that Hailey and Jay hugged Y/N and headed for their bedroom.

#resa.3kfiestabingo #halstead!sister #jay halstead x halstead!sister #Hailey Upton x Halstead!sister

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gardensandtaverns · 1 year

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Dev Journal: Day 1

I’ve tried a few times at putting myself out there with my system, boss, level, and world design content. Every time I did it for feedback, or validation, because I was looking for a reason to go out and do it full-time. Well, I’m now fresh out of college, a year down the drain trying to find any job that matches my qualifications, and have nothing better to do than to take the hobby I’ve poured countless hours into and run with it. So now this blog is finally just going out there for myself; clean slate.

For anyone who finds themselves becoming an interested and long-time fan of my work, I’ll document where I’m starting from here. Like I said, I’m fresh out of college. Twenty-two years old with a degree in Statistical Analysis, and a sizable amount of coursework in Operations, Actuarial Math, and Physics to boot. All that aside, I’ve been a huge game nerd for 15 years, been writing worlds and systems for a decade, and have been a perma-DM of both Dungeons and Dragons as well as, now, Pathfinder for a sum total of 5 years and counting. Needless to say, I’m a nerd who wasn’t encouraged to write - so I did all the hard homework first to make time for it.

This blog is gonna start out kinda boring, it’s really just me documenting what I’m doing. In part so I can look back at it, in part so I have it all somewhere that can be seen, and finally just so I can put myself out there. Being nerdy doesn’t really score you a huge network until well after school. Eventually I’m hoping to put some of my old D&D content and notes as a DM and worldbuilder out there. Maybe someone will learn something, maybe not.

Regardless, today was Day One. My first steps to really becoming a game designer. I’ve always had a knack for level and world design. I like making things that feel meaningful and have something to add. I’ve also been infatuated with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim since I was in middle school. So me, who has no credentials in softdev or compsci, well how am I going to make myself stand out to game studios? I’m starting with the Skyrim Creation Kit, and hopefully I can make something good enough to play with the big boys in some of the large community projects.

Today is Day One, Project One: The Bookwyrm’s Vault.

When I think of Skyrim, I think of three things. Vikings, dragons, and the Jedi Greybeards. But when I think of my ideal fantasy, I think of the wizarding type of sorcery, I think of arcane dragons - long-lived individuals who have honed magic over generations. And who’s to say that the dragons of Skyrim can’t be this way, Parthurnax certainly is.

So I devised the idea of the Bookwyrm’s Vault. I’m still undecided whether it is a Dwemer ruin built around the den of a long-departed dragon, or a ruin which a dragon took interest in. Regardless of which, the goal of this dungeon, unlike many of those in Skyrim, is not to add a crawl through enemies to feed the martial prowess of so many of the races of Tamriel. It’s to instead create something once beautiful and tranquil.

Initially I thought to conform to the Dwemer dungeon stereotypes of long hallways with many guardian automatons and littered steamworks and metal scraps. I’ve decided instead to be less industrious and more mystic and monastic with this ruin, to design a great library of magic and lore, one that rivals the College of Winterhold. Perhaps some Dwarven Spiders, remnants of a bookkeeping system as degraded as the parchment, remain to provide a small inconvenience to the Dragonborn. Even maybe a few runes of fire and lightning protecting more secretive experiments, or lingering from the attempts to keep something else in. This is my level, my addition, and I want it to reflect my interests in fantasy.

Now, today was my first day working with the Creation Kit. Panning with the MMB is a new experience, and wow could it use an efficiency update, but it is a decade-plus old piece of software, so I guess it gets a pass. For my first time working with the software, and having no clue what assets Skyrim actually uses, I decided to go pretty simple.

We start, as all subterranean dwellings must, with a passageway down and in to the earth, allowing all the room needed to carve out the great recording hall that is front and center. This room will, once populated, hold a dozen or more desks in varying states of repair and organization, and will have been where historically research of older tomes and transcription was done.

To the east of the recording hall, I’ve made a larger laboratory for more practical experimentation, which will feature a handful of crafting stations, like an alchemy and enchanting table, as well as maybe a staff enchanter if I feel inclined to make this mod require the Dragonborn mod.

To the west of the recording hall I plan to have a short hallway that connects a number of bedchambers, or private cells. A place to rest or study quietly.

Finally, to the south a passage leads further down. The door at the end of this passage will be locked, and I feel the key would be best kept in a well-warded chest in one of the private cells, as it leads to the special collections room.

Based on what I’ve seen of the assets library so far, I’m worried about making the special collections room because I had been hoping to make it a two-tiered library, but that may not be possible with the assets that exist and I certainly don’t have the experience to produce new ones. I may be able to use some of the components normally reserved for exteriors to get by, though. Only time will tell.

#skyrim #modded skyrim #modding #video games #game development #level design #magic #bookcore #dragons #dwarves #learning through play

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chirpsythismorning · 1 year

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I think people are just coping or trying to cope. Realistically it is very unlikely that we could get the season that fast. They have not even started filming yet. Almost all actors have other projects. They could get some actors earlier but it is expected that the scheduling will create problems, even if the actors have ST as their priority on their sheat... it is not really realistic to just get all actors on set. And the filming will last probably about 7-8 months (at best) and then there will be editing CGI stuff... which could take 10 months or so... yeah. So, do the math, and i did not even mention the potential writers strike thing. I do not think they'd want to rush things anyways, this is the last season, they'd want it to make sense and with a solid editing+CGI. That takes kinda... 10 months or so, and the promo has to also happen. Realistically we'll get the season in 2025. Early 2025 if we are lucky.

I agree! And I completely get where they're coming from.

I struggle with deciding if I should be honest about what I think realistically. Is it something that's disappointing and so people are just going to reject it, even despite the evidence bc it's not what they want? And if that's the case, what even is the point bc I obviously don't want to upset people or stress them out.

All I'm trying to do is think logically, so that way we can be prepared instead of disappointed over and over and over again. And tbh, telling ourselves the best possible case scenario is the most likely case scenario, is just setting ourselves up for even harsher disappointment.

I know 1 year and 10ish months seems like a lifetime from now, but it really isn't. We're going to be much more sad once it's over and we won't ever be able to see these characters again. The Duffers don't want to ruin the magic of Stranger Things, meaning there will be no reboots with these actors ever again in official canon. At best, we could get something animated, and that's at best. If anyone joins a literal live-action spin-off/reboot, it's unlikely to be someone from the MAIN main cast, as they'll have plenty of work opportunities after it's over. They also vouch for the ending of s5 being perfect. Which is why I think they wouldn't want to risk its eternal quality being ruined solely for a cash grab with a reboot set in the 2000's of them being re-traumatized all over again, essentially taking away all meaning and depth to s5's ending. It's just not happening (good thing we have fan-fiction).. ,

So again, once it premieres and it's over, there will be no more theorizing or getting excited for canon content beyond harmless fodder. I try to think about it that way when I get sad about waiting and it does honestly make me feel a little bit better. Bc surprises are arguably the best part of this experience. And so once there are no more left to be had, what even is there!!?

Although on that same note, once it's over, with the revelations all out in the open, they'll all finally be able to talk about things they couldn't during the shows run. So it will still be fun for fans that want to stick around for a while post-s5, but that also won't last forever. People will move on. Every phase of this experience is something we will look back on and wish we appreciated more, including hiatus right now. We will miss these times, when so much was still unknown and there was so much to hope and look forward to. The unknown is one of the best parts.

I do understand wanting to get closure sooner than later too though, bc waiting can sometimes feel like wasted time almost?

I will say that personally this is a good wake up call for me bc I do want to step back a little bit and focus on crafting major posts instead of like daily shit posts. I have so many in my drafts waiting for ?hrs of editing to be posted. Sometimes I find time for them, but then I get distracted and just end up making a random shit post instead. And so maybe it would be good to try to shift my focus to something more casual so that I can enjoy this experience more long-term instead of it feeling like an obligation more or less.

Not saying I'll be gone for months at a time. Quite frankly, if there's news to be reported, I want to be of the first to know, so I couldn't really leave permanently even if I wanted to... the FOMO would eat me alive.

#byler #byler tumblr #st5 #st5 promo #st5 filming #the great hiatus of s4-5 #we are going to tell our children about this #well i wont bc i'm too scared to have children with the world we're living in #but you get my point

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onthevirgeofdestruction · 1 year

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Words: 7,493 Warnings: Implied Bullying, Food (& Touching Raw Food), Fear, Yelling, Accusations, Anger/Frustration (Both with Foster Child and with Foster Guardians), Disappointment, Self-Doubt, Panic Attack, Graphic Flashback, Dissociation, Age Regression (Not implicitly stated), Implied Prior Child Abuse, Non-food things in mouth, Minor Unintentional Self-Harm (chewing on self), Minor blood (bleeding cuticle), Heavy Mental Health Discussions, Family Struggles Characters: Virgil, Roman, Logan Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort Additional Tags: Virgil Sanders is soaking in PTSD, Good Dads Logince

A Whole Castle - Chapter 26

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“Ugh!” Virgil cried in frustration as he mopped the raw egg yolk off his face that nearly dripped into his eye as he struggled to unlock the front door. Today he put up with shitty grades, teachers who had lost their patience with him, bigots, bullies, and every time he tried to relax, he thought of his mother. It wasn’t even the egg in his hair that soured his mood so deeply. He was just so painfully done with life, and that was just the egg on top. More raw egg ran into his eyebrow and he wiped it off and flung it off his hands and he finally worked his key into the lock to come inside.

He slammed the door shut and adjusted his backpack to walk down the hall to clean up this mess and attempt to not have to be alive for a few minutes, with his eyes staunchly to the floor. He ended up bumping into Roman, instead of making it to his room without a fuss, however.

“Virgil?” Roman greeted curiously and Virgil groaned in response, backing up to find a way around him. “Oh my goodness, how did you get an egg in your hair? Did someone do that to you? Who do I need to talk to? Do you need help?” Roman asked in quick succession, and each word grated Virgil even rawer than the last.

“Shut up! You don’t even really care, so stop pretending!” Virgil shot loudly, throwing up his arms and stepping to the side to get around Roman, but he continued to stand there. More egg dribbled into Virgil’s face, and he screamed in frustration. Roman sullenly stepped aside, gripping his arms, and Virgil marched ahead to his bedroom, accidentally jostling Roman with his backpack on the way. Virgil slammed the door closed behind him without a single glance back.

Roman stared despondently at the closed bedroom door, feeling lost. He had thought they’d made progress last week. They had watched a movie together, and Virgil even got a small amount of help with his math homework from Logan. Roman thought Virgil was finally getting used to them and starting to trust them.

Virgil came out of his room a few moments later and stomped into the hall bathroom, slamming that door shut as well. Roman didn’t know what to do. Virgil was clearly too overwhelmed to talk, and removing the egg from his hair would be Roman’s priority, too. He didn’t want to leave things like this, but it didn’t feel like there was anything to do. Especially if Virgil still hated them just as much as he always did, and they had made no progress with him at all. Roman exhaled a sharp breath and left for his bedroom.

Roman plopped onto the edge of the bed with a small bounce of the mattress and put his elbows on his knees to drop his face into his hands. If there was nothing to do, could Roman even call himself a parent? A guardian? Or is he just a person who lives with Virgil? When Virgil was even present, that was. He’d run away three times already and seemed to be a master at hiding.

What was it about Roman that Virgil hated so much? Or was that an overreaction? He knows Virgil is going through something, and at an age when kids already have so much to deal with. Roman even knows it’s probably not even about him and just how Virgil feels about adults. He’s gotten into trouble at school for arguing with the teachers, too. But hearing Virgil accuse Roman of not caring at all stung. Did Virgil actually think that?

The bathroom door opened with a click and a frustrated teenage sigh, but Roman stayed where he sat on the bed. He didn’t know what to say to fix any of this or if Virgil would even listen if he tried. Virgil skulked back to his bedroom, feeling better with the egg out of his hair and washing the day off of him. He noticed Roman and Logan’s bedroom door was closed, which was abnormal for them, but he was grateful to not have to deal with more people today. Virgil closed his door behind him quietly and kicked his backpack out of the way to go lie down, but he paused just before reclining.

Roman had never done this before. He normally tried to ‘solve’ the problem and would annoyingly stick around, hovering over Virgil like some kind of vulture waiting for his demise. Did Virgil finally fuck up enough to get their attention? He wasn’t even trying to find his foster parent’s boundaries today. He was just sick of today and sick of life and couldn’t take anything else. But now he was going to have to tolerate something else. He was finally enough of an ass to cause Roman to change his tune, and that tune would probably be much darker now.

Would apologizing even help? Could Virgil even apologize? He wasn’t even sure what he said anymore. His brain was feeling hazy and malfunctioning. He couldn’t handle being punished today. His skin and brain were already on fire with stress firing on all of his nerve endings. If anybody touched him, it would hurt twice as much. He wasn’t sure his brain could even take it. He was already at his wit’s end today. And Roman is so much bigger than his mother was. And Roman and Logan both exercised. They tried to get Virgil to join them multiple times. Roman was probably stronger than his mom was, too. With a harder fist and a stronger grip, yanking him by his clothes and choking the air out of his throat. The stale smell of his mother’s perfume laced with a sharp coppery smell hit his nose and Virgil gripped at his hair in a panic.

He backed up, trying to get away from her. He could see her looming closer, but he rammed into something behind him. There wasn’t supposed to be anything there, but things clattered loudly down to the floor as he was cornered. His mom reached for that book and his breath caught in his throat and he balled up on the floor, striving to make himself smaller and harder to hit. There was nowhere to go, just try to protect the parts that hurt most when hit. Virgil’s muscles all tensed painfully as he held himself on the floor and struggled to breathe through his clenched throat. The blood pounded so hard against his skin that every pulse stung. The gripping pain in his head caused him to be afraid to open his eyes enough to even let in a sliver of light. Every breath he took was so sharp, it scared him it would be his last.

The commotion from down the hall made Roman raise his head, but he wasn’t sure what to do. Was Virgil throwing things in his room again? He broke nothing last time and Roman genuinely didn’t know how to stop him from doing that, so maybe letting Virgil wear himself out was the best call. He couldn’t tell anymore. Continuing to allow Virgil to do that was dangerous and a major issue, and leaving it alone made Roman feel even more deficient, but he simply didn’t know what he could even say. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, leaning back on the bed before slipping and lying flat to stare up at the ceiling, feeling like he had failed.

After a short eternity, the bedroom door clicked open and Roman shot his head over to see if it was Virgil. It wasn’t Virgil, though, it was his mildly haggard-looking husband coming into his bedroom, so Roman sighed and looked back at the ceiling. It seemed everyone was having a hard day. “Good evening, darling,” he greeted Logan sullenly.

Logan leaned down and kissed Roman’s hand in greeting, letting out a weary sigh. “Is there a problem, love?” He asked, sitting down on the bed next to Roman.

“I’m not cut out to be a parent,” Roman stated plainly, still staring up ahead at the ceiling. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. You said I’d settle into it, but I still feel like I’m stumbling in the dark and doing more harm than good.”

“You are perfectly capable of being an excellent father, Roman. The fact that you are concerned about the repercussions of your actions is a sign enough alone,” Logan rebuked, reaching out to put his hand over Roman’s.

“Being worried about messing up isn’t what makes a good father. And it isn’t so much about the consequences of my actions as it is that I just don’t know what to do anymore. I feel like I’ve tried everything and Virgil would still throw me off a moving train for a nickel, jettisoning me into some ancient mining quarry. I’ll watch the smoke billow from the train as I fall to my death for a shiny coin and Virgil won’t feel a thing,” Roman explained bitterly, gripping at the comforter.

“I doubt he would trade your life for five cents,” Logan chuckled through his nose.

“You didn’t see him scream at me for not caring,” Roman grumbled, reaching up to rub his face.

“He did what?” Logan bristled, looking at Roman intensely.

“He shouted at me, accusing me of only pretending to care about him, then literally screamed until I let him pass. I was too hurt to respond, so I just let him go,” Roman explained quietly, gripping at the sheet with his free hand while Logan gripped his other one. “I don’t know what to do. I’m not a suitable parent for him. I don’t think I’m a proper parent to anyone. You told me I’d be brilliant at this and that parenting would be fulfilling, and I believed you, but right now I just feel hollow. I really, truly believe that Virgil can be helped, but I just don’t think I’m the one. I have too much baggage with my own father. I barely know what it means to be a good parent. I feel like ‘just don’t be my father’ isn’t enough. Especially not for Virgil. He needs—”

“Someone kind. And you are, Roman. You didn’t engage Virgil when he was lashing out, which is hard to do. You’re not an inadequate parent, and you’re not incapable of helping him. You know your father would have engaged Virgil and shouted back. In this situation, not being your father was enough. Other times will need more than knowing what not to do, but we will learn that. He is human and has human needs foremost, and treating him that way is an important part of parenting you excel at. Nobody knows how to do this universally. There is no professional class not run by charlatans, and the guides all say ‘do your best’. It is okay to feel lost. What’s imperative is to support Virgil, and I believe we are both capable. Virgil needing time and space to trust us is reasonable after what he went through,” Logan explained emphatically and put both hands on Roman’s.

Roman sniffled and teared up a bit, nodding in response. He felt choked up suddenly at Logan’s sincere response to his panic. Roman swallowed heavily and sat up, pulling Logan in for a hug that Logan quickly reciprocated. He hugged Roman tightly, rubbing his back. “Thank you, love,” Roman creaked out. Logan just held him tighter while Roman’s eyes seemed to flounder on wanting to cry. A single tear escaped, and his throat felt tight, but that was all there was. “I wish I knew how to show him I cared and it wasn’t just an elaborate act,” he added under his breath.

“We are working on trust with him. It will come in time. For now, I imagine he has cooled down, and I will go talk to him about his behaviour and see if I can find out why he felt the need to lash out in the first place,” Logan said softly, still feeling emotionally raw from seeing his husband hurt like that.

“If it helps, there was a large egg crushed into his hair when he got in. He might have gotten bullied again.” Roman sniffled, pressing his head in to Logan’s neck for comfort. Logan rested his chin on Roman’s head affectionately and sighed, still stroking Roman’s back.

“I wish he would let us help him with that. I could easily solve his harassment situation if he just told me who it was. He doesn’t have to suffer like this, and he still has no reason to take it out on you,” Logan groused slightly. He kissed Roman’s hair and pulled back, looking at Roman one more time. “Hopefully this won’t devolve into him shouting again, but it often does, so be prepared for that,” Logan warned him warily. Roman nodded and rubbed his eye on his sleeve. Logan stood up from off the bed and steeled himself for Virgil’s misplaced anger before heading down the hall and knocking on Virgil’s door twice.

There was a small shuffling from behind the door, but there was no response. Logan waited for the shuffle to quiet before announcing that he was coming in and opening the bedroom door. “Virgil, I understand you likely had a hard day, but we need to talk,” Logan stated plainly, taking a deep breath. He needed to try his best to stay impartial, but making his husband cry was not something that Logan wanted to allow to continue.

“Shouting at Roman because you had a hard time when he is only trying to help you is not alright. Please speak at a reasonable volume and tell us you need space before you’re comfortable discussing a subject. It is alright to not be ready to talk, but it is never okay to scream at someone. Please be mindful that we are also people with emotions, just like you, and we’re happy to help you find other outlets for your feelings than treating us terribly.” Logan explained as genially as he could, but he realized that his last statement ended up sounding passive aggressive. He took another deep breath and waited for Virgil to yell back, but nothing came.

Logan watched Virgil ball up on the floor, chewing on his thumb and looking completely wracked. His hair was standing straight up in some parts, extremely tousled instead of Virgil’s normal bedhead. His face was red and swollen, and he looked hollow and utterly exhausted. He was holding a throw from his bed in his other hand and even though he was facing Logan’s general direction, his eyes were glazed and Logan wasn’t even sure he was paying Logan any heed. Logan balked slightly at Virgil’s appearance, but ignoring Logan completely wasn’t much better than yelling back.

“Virgil, I need you to listen and pay attention to me, please. Avoiding the problem doesn’t make it go away,” Logan spoke categorically, but there was still no response from Virgil. Logan expected something like ‘I sure wish you would’, or at least an angry grumble, but there was nothing. This was very odd behaviour. He just continued chewing on his thumb and staring. “Virgil,” he said flatly. “At least get your thumb out of your mouth. That is an unhealthy habit. It is bad for your teeth and obviously causes harm to your hand,” Logan chided, and Virgil switched his thumb for the blanket instead. He was at least listening, yet Logan would have preferred a form of acknowledgment.

“Will you tell me what the issue was in the first place that caused you to lash out so that we can treat the problem at its core?” Logan asked with a sigh, running his hand through his hair. Virgil made a small ‘I don’t know’ noise from his throat, but he still didn’t speak. Was Virgil taking him seriously at all? He didn’t understand what was going on. This manner of conduct was abnormal for Virgil or any teenager. There wasn’t even a frustrated huff that Logan heard so much as a math teacher that the noise felt ingrained into his brain.

“Virgil, are you paying attention to me?” Logan asked, and Virgil stared blankly at Logan for a moment. Logan took a deep breath to settle down, and Virgil nodded deliberately, making another soft noise from his throat. Was Virgil being obstinate in a new way? This wasn’t exactly objectionable behaviour, but it was an extremely one-sided conversation.

“It is… very quiet over here,” Roman stated cautiously, walking up behind Logan. “What’s going on?” He peered into the room and saw Virgil on the floor, and slumped immediately. “Virgil…” Roman spoke softly. Virgil glanced slowly at him, looking absolutely terrible. Roman might have cried a little, but it seemed to him like he took the entire interaction much poorer than Roman did.

“Roman, I love your soft heart, but he pushed a boundary,” Logan said firmly, putting a hand on Roman’s shoulder as he stepped further into the bedroom.

“He’s clearly been through it, honey. He looks worse than when he got here. And they told us he literally fought the social worker trying to escape,” Roman stated compassionately, and Logan wilted. That was an accurate recollection. “Virgil, how about you help me clean up in here, then be my sous-chef for dinner, and we’ll call it even, okay?” Roman offered kindly, and Logan bristled again.

“That doesn’t seem fair to you in the slightest,” Logan stated plainly, getting more frustrated at the situation.

“They’re my hurt emotions, and I can decide what works for me for an apology. He had a hard day, and he didn’t deal with it well. I can’t say I’ve never done the same. We can talk more about it when he’s feeling better, but right now, I think we could all use a little comfort,” Roman replied, taking Logan’s hand briefly before letting go and moving closer to Virgil. Virgil stared at him blankly, but Roman moved to pick up the items that tumbled from Virgil’s shelf and motioned for Virgil to come over and join him.

Virgil moved sluggishly and dragged the blanket with him, but he started picking things up and putting them back on the shelf along with Roman. They gathered the fallen objects and put them away together while Logan watched curiously, stepping out of their way so they could clean unimpaired. They gathered and returned things to their proper place up in short order, even with Virgil moving sluggishly. Roman began making the bed and Virgil followed suit, mostly just mirroring what Roman was doing. Roman tried to take the blanket that Virgil was holding to fold it, but Virgil’s mostly blank face morphed quickly to concern, still gripping onto the hem. Virgil made a weak noise of dissent and Roman stopped and released the throw.

“Did you want to hold on to that?” Roman asked softly and Virgil nodded, his thumb making its way back between his teeth. “Alright, you can take it with you while we cook, as long as you keep it away from the food. Let’s go start dinner now,” Roman requested, and Virgil just continued to stare at him. “Come on,” he added when Virgil didn’t follow him out of the room right away.

Virgil followed when Roman asked him to, and Logan watched with mild bewilderment as he complied. All three went to the kitchen in silence, with Virgil dragging along the blanket with him. It was new and interesting, to say the least. Roman rubbed his chin and stared at the fridge door briefly, examining the ingredients they had available on the list Logan kept posted on the door. He hummed, glancing at Virgil standing in the kitchen who was looking very lost and wringing his blanket slightly. Logan crossed his arms and watched them work, settling near the table and out of the way.

“Virgil, will you get the pasta noodles out of the pantry? Not spaghetti, something smaller and shaped like rotini or farfalle,” Roman said distractedly, opening up the fridge. Logan observed Virgil blink a few times before going into the pantry, looking around like he was unfamiliar. He retrieved a box of cavatappi, dropping it immediately with a rattle of the dry pasta. Virgil bent over to pick it up, then walked over to hold it up to Roman. “Put it on the counter, darling.” Roman waved and Virgil went to the counter and gently slid it on the counter, knocking the box over and standing it up again. He went back to chewing his thumb while Roman withdrew cheese, a head of broccoli, and a few carrots from the refrigerator. He placed them all on the counter by the sink and started washing the vegetables.

“Pull out a pot, a pan, and a measuring cup, Virgil,” Roman requested, and Virgil’s eyes followed his pointer finger before heading to the cabinet next to the stove to do as asked. Logan watched as Virgil seemed to continue to struggle over a simple task, but he put them on the counter without dropping anything this time, looking nervous again and chewing his thumb, stepping out of the way when he was done. “Thank you. Would you pour out a cup of milk for the béchamel?” Roman followed up with the next request. Virgil made a small noise and went to the fridge, extracting the milk and taking it over to the counter with the measuring cup.

Virgil slowly tilted the carton into the measuring cup, but he splashed some milk on the counter. Logan grimaced and Virgil continued to pour, measuring out a loose cup but leaving a mess all over the counter and down the side of the container.

“Virgil, are you feigning incompetence to not have to do things?” Logan asked shortly, but Virgil glanced at him in confusion, then looked down at his hands briefly. Virgil’s hands were shaking visibly.

“It’s a full carton, love, it’s just an accident,” Roman replied airily. “Wet the kitchen rag and clean that up, alright?” He added, looking at Virgil. He did as asked, cleaning up carefully, including the dribbled milk down the side of the carton before Logan took it and put it away for him. Virgil went back to chewing his thumb with one hand and gripping the blanket like his life depended on it with the other, and Logan uncrossed his arms. Virgil still looked straight ahead, like he wasn’t seeing anything in front of him while he stood next to the counter, gnawing on his thumb. “Are you that hungry, Virgil?” Roman asked playfully, shaking off the extra moisture from the vegetables in the sink.

Logan suspiciously moved closer to Virgil to check on Virgil, but blood spattered down Virgil’s cuticle immediately drew his attention. “Virgil, go wash your hands,” Logan pointed to the sink, and Virgil looked at him in confusion. “Virgil.” He said slower, miming washing his hands. “Please wash your hands with hand soap,” he directed. Roman stepped out of the way and Virgil did as asked as Logan got the first aid kit out of the pantry and pulled out the triple antibiotic and a finger bandage.

“Is everything alright?” Roman asked in confusion, dropping off the vegetables on the counter.

“… Roman, have you ever witnessed Virgil have an issue with chewing on his hands before?” Logan asked, taking Virgil’s hand away from him before it ended back up in his mouth and bandaged up the bleeding cuticle.

“I’ve seen him chew his nails and pick his cuticles, but not the actual skin, though. But why are you asking me? You know he doesn’t appreciate it when we talk about him as if he’s not in the room. I’m sure he’d rather you ask him,” Roman asked, bending down to pull out a cutting board for the vegetables.

“I’m not positive he can answer right now. Virgil, can you talk?” Logan asked, making certain the bandage was securely in place. Virgil’s mouth opened and a noise somewhere between a gasp and a squeak came out. He closed his mouth again and shook his head. Logan smoothed over the bandage a few times before letting go of Virgil’s hand.

“Is he okay?” Roman asked with concern.

“I’m not sure. Virgil, what’s two plus two?” Logan inquired, causing Roman to make a baffled face, but Virgil held up four fingers in response after a pause. “Three times three,” he asked next. Virgil processed much longer this time, looking strained, before holding up nine fingers, pinching the blanket to his hand with his thumb. “What is one hundred divided by twenty?” Virgil’s face furrowed up as he tried to think it through, and he looked ill before the blank expression washed over his face once more. “Virgil?” Logan asked, but Virgil didn’t even seem to hear him that time, absently already picking at the bandage on his thumb. Logan tapped his hand and carefully pushed Virgil’s other hand away from the bandage, but he still was not present. “Virgil,” Logan said once more, tapping Virgil’s hand more firmly this time. Virgil blinked and finally looked at Logan in the face.

Roman watched with confusion the entire time, not sure what was happening. “What does that establish, doc?” Roman urged with concern, turning to lean on the counter.

“I’m not positive, but I think Virgil is severely dissociated. I suppose it could be an elaborate ruse, but I doubt a teenager could be this thorough about it.” Logan rubbed his face, feeling mildly distraught at this turn of events.

“Is that something that he needs to see a doctor for?” Roman asked, examining Virgil with worry.

“A mental doctor, yes. There is nothing on his medical record that indicated he’s ever had an issue even relating to this,” Logan answered, sounding distracted.

“We’ve already been trying to take him to a therapist and he keeps disappearing when it’s time for his appointments. What are we supposed to do?” Roman asked, gripping at the countertop and frowning deeply.

“Tricking him might make him hate us or, even worse, he could run away somewhere far from the house and be more at risk of harm than he is hiding in the suburb.” Logan took in a deep breath, letting it out with a forlorn sigh. Roman moved the cookware to the stove and grabbed a knife for the cutting board to continue with dinner while he thought. Virgil’s fingers ended up in his mouth again, and Logan gently pulled them out, and he went to the fridge to pull out a carrot stick and handed it off to Virgil. Virgil took it and looked at it like it was an alien object. Logan mimed chewing on the carrot stick and Virgil followed suit, now gnawing on that instead of his hand.

“Is spacing out one of those innocuous things that are a sign of an underlying problem?” Roman asked, sorting out everything to chop up on the cutting board.

“Dissociation isn’t just ‘spacing out’, Roman,” Logan corrected him distractedly, watching Virgil gnaw at the baby carrot while he processed.

“Oh, I thought it was the medical term for it. You drop those out of nowhere on me.” Roman chuckled breathily, his humour not returned to him enough for a genuine laugh.

“No, dissociation is the brain’s response to enough stress that the brain shuts down to protect itself from being traumatized. It looks like spacing out, but is a more severe version of it and is functionally different,” Logan explained tiredly.

“Wait, what? Logan, I swear, I didn’t even respond and just let him be! I certainly did nothing that wicked!” Roman shot in a defensive manner, his hands slamming on the counter.

“No, I believe you, darling. Children who have an issue with dissociating are often doing it because they have no other coping mechanisms, and it doesn’t have to be caused by anything major occurring or universally traumatizing. In the past, he possibly…” Logan trailed off while Roman took a deep breath to calm back down. “Oh. I knew he had mental health issues because no healthy child lashes out as much as he does—”

“Or would run away when you make him his favourite food,” Roman added, slightly exasperated.

“Yes, that too. But I mean… hold on. Virgil?” Logan tapped Virgil’s hand again, and Virgil’s eyes moved up to look at Logan. “Would you like to colour while we finish making dinner?” Logan asked, and Virgil took another moment to process before nodding. His head moved without his hand, and it knocked the gnawed carrot stick out of his mouth. Logan bent down to pick up the carrot and chucked it in the garbage, then went to gather Roman’s mandala colouring book and markers from the living room. He placed the collected items on the kitchen table and put his hand on Virgil’s back to lead him to the table. “You can colour with these on any empty page.” Logan handed Virgil a marker, and Virgil took it carefully, sitting down on a dining chair.

“Did he actually do something you suggested for fun without fighting about us not knowing him?” Roman asked warily, a single nervous chuckle breaking out. Virgil put the blanket on his lap and popped open the marker cap and clicked it closed.

“I do not want to cause him further stress by our discussion, and I am not sure if he can pay attention to more than one thing at a time,” Logan informed him why he temporarily derailed the conversation now that Virgil had something to do other than chew on himself.

Roman watched Virgil play with the marker caps a few more times, while Logan flipped to a random page in the colouring book for him. Virgil didn’t seem to notice, completely enthralled by the clicking pen cap until Logan took another marker and put a mark on the page, which drew Virgil’s attention. “You’re probably right about that,” Roman said, his tone mixed with amusement and apprehension.

“Roman, we might have made a mistake,” Logan stated plainly, pulling out a chair to sit sideways and face Roman. He didn’t sound upset, but Roman bristled at the idea alone.

“You said I did the right thing by not engaging when he screamed at me.” Roman’s face fell further, looking heartbroken.

“No, not about that. That was correct. He is still learning emotional regulation and giving him time to cool down was the correct thing to do, this situation aside. But I think we’ve been interpreting his behaviours wrong.” Logan quickly assuaged his husband’s insecurity, though he was feeling a little emotionally worn out himself.

“In what way?” Roman asked, already looking much better.

“I’m not saying all the episodes aren’t him lashing out due to frustration with his situation. Some of them still could be. He is in a difficult position as a foster child, and has limited resources to cope with all the things he has no agency in and his past houses that did not treat him well. But anger doesn’t always come from a sense of injustice or unfairness for your situation,” Logan answered, feeling more exhausted and guilty as things settled into place in his mind.

“I mean, he certainly has a good reason to feel the world isn’t fair to him,” Roman interjected matter-of-factly.

“While that is true, I mean that anger can sometimes just be a mask for the fear response. He’s afraid. More deeply than he might even know. Dissociation, at its core, is a stress response. And dissociating this severely when there wasn’t even a fight might be an indicator that Virgil has PTSD.” Logan rubbed his face and leaned back on the table, glancing at Virgil who had his tongue slightly out while colouring at the mandala messily with an indigo marker.

“Oh…” Roman uttered softly. “Oh, no.”

Logan watched Virgil colour as if there was nothing else happening in the kitchen at all. “Indeed.” Logan looked over to Roman, who was also watching Virgil with deep concern. “Instead of just trying to give him the space he requires to realize we’re here to support him and not control or hurt him, we should switch our focus to make him feel safer. Obviously, he still needs boundaries about his aggressive behaviour enforced. He cannot continue going through life being mad at the world and making it everyone else’s problem. But step one has to be that he recognizes he is safe before we even do that.”

“How do we do that? We’ve been trying to do so already,” Roman asked, his voice tinted with exasperation.

“Comfort and careful words, I suppose. I am unsure. I am not a mental health professional and there is sadly not a formula for this,” Logan replied, glancing over to Roman, who seemed amused, a small smile on his lips. Logan arched an eyebrow at him at that incredibly out-of-place reaction.

“Of course you’d want a formula for trust, teach.” Roman snickered slightly, turning back to the counter to return to preparing dinner.

“Well, one would certainly be nice!” Logan expressed sourly, running his hand through his hair.

Roman paused while cooking to lean and glance at Virgil, who had a blank look again, just holding the marker and staring at the colouring book. “... Do we need to take him to a clinic? He really doesn’t seem like he normally does,” he asked warily.

“No, that may stress him out more. A quiet evening should help. If he wakes up tomorrow still dissociated, then we should consider that to make sure he is okay, but shutting down from a stressful day is fairly normal, even if it rarely includes someone being this dissociated,” Logan answered, leaning on the table and feeling somewhat battered.

“I suppose it’s a good thing I’m already making comfort food. A movie after dinner, then? Virgil agreed to watch one before, so he might be more comfortable with it now,” Roman suggested, slightly more upbeat at the concept as he got back to cooking dinner.

“Yes, I’m not sure if he can do much else. We will just try to keep an eye to make sure he isn’t getting distressed. A lighthearted movie with low stakes, ideally. It would be best to monitor him until he seems more present. Him chewing into his cuticle enough for it to bleed without reacting might mean he’s not feeling pain right now, so he could seriously injure himself if left alone.” Logan ran his hand through his hair and adjusted his glasses.

“Will he be able to eat?” Roman asked warily.

“I believe so. He can colour and wash his hands, so he should be able to put a fork to his mouth and chew just as well,” Logan replied, feeling mildly relieved about that fact alone. He could feel reassured Virgil’s needs are met, if nothing else. It was difficult for Logan to not feel ineffectual and helpless in this situation.

Roman snorted a little laugh through his nose and Logan looked to Roman in puzzlement, and Roman was looking over to Virgil. Logan looked over and Virgil was chewing on a marker cap. Logan sighed and took it out of Virgil’s fingers and guided the hand holding the blanket back up to his mouth, which Virgil started chewing on the fabric without hesitation. “I don’t think getting him to put things in his mouth will be hard in hindsight, no,” Roman remarked with humour and smoothly returned to deftly cooking dinner.

“We might need to get him something designed to chew on. Though many people do not remember what happened during a dissociative episode, he might not understand why we are giving it to him.” Logan rubbed the bridge of his nose just under his glasses pads. “He doesn’t appreciate being treated like a child, so it might be another argument,” he added wearily.

“He might not remember this?” Roman asked with a pause, continuing to prepare food a few moments later. “He could probably use the calm evening after his day. I wonder how he even got an egg in his hair. He didn’t come home late enough to go to someone’s house,” he pointed out.

“It may have happened anywhere, things are chaotic when school gets out, and it is easy to miss student misconduct among the hoards of evacuating teens,” Logan stated with a small sigh, tossing a glance to Virgil who was still colouring and chewing his blanket. He was looking slightly better, though could use a hairbrush.

“It looked very wet still. It might have happened on the bus. Hopefully, he’ll be willing to answer who, so we can solve this. Whoever he’s been jousting with at school seems to keep escalating, and I am worried that Virgil may do the same,” Roman pointed out with a bitter twinge to his words.

“He… may very well be doing that. I would like to avoid Virgil getting in trouble at the school, but until we know what’s going on or who it is, there isn’t much we can do. We can try bribing him for information, but I do not want to set a precedent of doing that every time we need to communicate,” Logan agreed, feeling very lost on how to proceed. “I am used to things being straight-forward. Having a clear step to take to solve an issue. This is… very messy.”

“So might be Virgil once he gets a fork and this mac and cheese,” Roman joked airily, lifting the mood a little.

“He does seem to be acting very young at the moment. A napkin bib could be helpful since he has already showered,” Logan said with a small nod. “Hopefully, he will not bite me if I put one on him.” He smiled at the thought.

“Entering the chew-zone seems perilous for fingers,” Roman concurred cheekily. “I want a picture of him in a bib so badly, but he may very well try to kill me if he ever discovers it.” He shrugged his shoulders a little while he kept cooking.

“Getting pictures to show a therapist the dissociation might be a good idea.” Logan hummed, rubbing his chin in contemplation. “Perhaps just for medical purposes, though, just to avoid stoking his ire further. I doubt he would consent to us keeping those photos. I am sure you can get photos with him in the future, Roman. He just needs time,” he tried to reassure his moping husband.

“How does he not see how adorable he is?” Roman asked incredulously, moving over to the stove with his prepped ingredients and supplies. “I just want pictures to show my friends! And maybe the internet, though I don’t want his identity to get mixed up with my career. But my fans would love him, even with his identity hidden, I’m sure!” He declared enthusiastically. Roman gasped delightedly. “We could take a post mani-pedi selfie together!”

“Virgil most likely doesn’t want to be on your social media, darling. He has been adamantly against photos of himself,” Logan replied warily. Roman sagged slightly at the rebuttal.

“That is… very fair, considering. I hope he opens up about his interests soon. He could still want to try out new fashion and glamour products,” Roman stated slyly, stirring on the stove.

“I am aware you are enthusiastic, love, but please do not buy twenty outfits in the hopes he picks one. He could very well burn them in a pyre.” Logan rolled his eyes slightly, checking on Virgil again after Roman scoffed. He still seemed okay, at least for someone possibly not aware he was even in reality. The blanket looked wet with spittle, which caused Logan to grimace a little.

“Playing with fashion is important to figuring out your style, darling. I just want him to learn how fun self-expression can be. I’ve seen him glare at himself in the mirror. It’s just a shame, and it was fun for me when I was younger to try on being new people,” Roman explained himself, waving with his free hand while he stirred.

“Fair point, love. I perhaps am feeling sensitive about this whole situation. It is very hard to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped,” Logan conceded softly, casting a glance at Virgil again, who still didn’t seem aware of very much, but had switched markers.

“Showing him it is okay to be helped could be a good start. You were certainly very resistant to help when we met. What helped you decide to accept it?” Roman inquired, keeping his focus on the cooking.

“Largely your tenacity. I wanted you to shut up about it,” Logan said teasingly, but Roman only chuckled in response. “But perhaps also the concept of help being available and beneficial settling in. I had gotten too used to receiving poor help that resulted in more things I had to solve. We would have to learn what Virgil’s issue is. He could associate it with being rejected, punishment, or any other negative thing without knowing.” Logan weighed the options a moment. “Perhaps we could get him to play a word association game,” he suggested brightly, enticed by the concept.

“A great future plan for when he isn’t drooling on a blanket or screaming at us. One step at a time, my miraculous ray of light,” Roman reminded him softly, and Logan sighed and sagged at the table. There was a long pause of nothing but the sounds of cooking and the smells in the kitchen growing progressively tastier as they both stewed on the subject after that.

Roman was nearly done with cooking when he had the idea, and it hit him so suddenly he dropped the cooking utensil, which caused Logan to jump out of his solemn reverie. “Are you alright, Roman?”

“Do you know what is fun, rebellious, cool, and could give Virgil a sense of control over himself?” Roman asked cheerily, feeling very pleased with himself for coming up with the idea.

“We’re not getting him a motorcycle, Roman,” Logan joked flatly, causing Roman to chortle.

“No, no. We let him dye his own hair. He picks the colours and does it himself. If he could choose something about himself and make the change himself, he could be more open to trying it with other things in his life,” Roman explained his idea with glowing pride while he prepared dinner.

“Those chemicals could be very dangerous to children, Roman. I am not a fan of that idea. And what if it looks horrendous? He had no experience in hair dying and bullies at school could harass him over it,” Logan disapproved of the idea outright, pointing out what Roman seemed to overlook.

“We can either dye it back or just let it grow out and cut it off. It’s hair, it’s not permanent. And surely you can do it safely. I am absolutely positive that with enough research we can avoid issues, or so many children wouldn’t have it. And well, for the bullies… there’s not much they’re already not doing. I’m not sure that it matters unless he tells us who it is to help him. Maybe if they bully him for it, he might get mad enough at them to fess up, too.”

Logan stared at Roman for a moment, processing all that information. “That is a fair assessment. On the condition that we only provide him the dye if I can find a safer method, and he agrees to learn how to use it properly, it has the chance to have a very positive effect on Virgil’s life, as well. It may be worth the risk if he is enthusiastic about the idea,” Logan conceded to Roman, though his tone still wasn’t particularly agreeable. Roman beamed anyway, happy to win an argument and try something new.

Roman finished the meal humming a tune as Logan relaxed at the table, enjoying the smells of the kitchen while he rested, continuing to monitor Virgil. He seemed to have phases of coming slightly back to the present, including sniffing the air and looking around the room, but mostly he stayed focused on colouring and gnawing on his blanket. Roman’s cheer was infectious, and Logan couldn’t help but feel more hopeful as well. More information is always a good thing for Logan, and he now knew more of what the core issue was and Roman’s admittedly excellent suggestion to try. Perhaps it was a long day for everyone, but there was a warming dinner nearly ready, and they were all here together. They could still move forward, even if nobody knew how yet.

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